About this item
Maria Sirena tells stories. She does it for money - she was a favorite in the cigar factory where she worked as a lettora - and for love, spinning gossamer tales out of her own past for the benefit of friends, neighbors, and family. But now, like a modern-day Scheherazade, she will be asked to tell one last story so that eight women can keep both hope and themselves alive. Cuba, 1963. Hurricane Flora, one of the deadliest hurricanes in recorded history, is bearing down on the island. Seven women have been forcibly evacuated from their homes and herded into the former governor's mansion, where they are watched over by another woman, a young soldier of Castro's new Cuba named Ofelia. Outside the storm is raging and the floodwaters are rising. In a single room on the top floor of the governor's mansion, Maria Sirena begins to tell the incredible story of her childhood during Cuba's Third War of Independence; of her father Augustin, a ferocious rebel; of her mother, Lulu, an astonishing woman who fought, loved, dreamed, and suffered as fiercely as her husband.
About the Author
Chantel Acevedo holds an MFA from the University of Miami. Her novel, Love and Ghost Letters (St. Martin's Press, 2005) , won the Latino International Book Award for Best Historical Fiction, and was nominated for Connecticut Book of the Year. Her other novels include: A Falling Star (Carolina Wren Press, 2013) , winner of the Doris Bakwin Award, Song the Red Cloak, a historical novel for young adults, and THE DISTANT MARVELS, forthcoming from Europa Editions in 2015. Acevedo's short stories and poems have appeared in numerous journals, including Prairie Schooner, American Poetry Review, and North American Review, among others. She has received two Fulbright awards for secondary education, and was named a Literature Fellow in 2013 by the Alabama State Council on the Arts. Acevedo currently serves as Editor of the Southern Humanities Review and is the founder of the Auburn Writers Conference. She is an Associate Professor in the Department of English at Auburn University and the Alumni-Writer-in-Residence.
