Celia del Pino stands at the center of a family torn apart by Cuba's revolutionary transformation. From the 1930s through 1980, she witnesses her husband drift away, her daughter flee to America, and her grandchildren grow up divided between two worlds. The revolution that promised to unite Cuba instead splits the del Pino family across political lines and ocean waters. Celia clings to her revolutionary ideals while her relatives choose exile or rebellion. Her daughter raises children in a foreign land, speaking a foreign language, while Celia remains on an island caught between dreams of progress and the reality of struggle. Each generation carries different memories of what Cuba was and different hopes for what it might become. The family's story unfolds against a backdrop of beauty shadowed by hardship, where political conviction collides with personal loss. This is a story about the weight of choosing sides and the price families pay when history forces them apart.
Genres: literary-fiction, historical-fiction, 20th-century, 21st-century, family-drama
Vibes: emotional, intimate, thought-provoking
Tropes: family-saga, generational-conflict, political-divide
Setting: Cuba
Period: 1930s, 1980s
Paperback · First Monkey Media