Barbara Caver is the author of the new memoir A Little Piece of Cuba: A Journey to Become Cubana-Americana. She is also a film and television production executive, and she lives in New York City.
Q: What inspired you to write A Little Piece of Cuba?
A: For my whole life, I have been curious about my Cuban heritage and how it shows up in me, but the inspiration to write this book came after I visited Cuba in 2017.
The trip was only five days, and I don't even speak Spanish, but I did not feel like I was visiting a foreign country; I felt like I was being welcomed home. I wanted to tell a story about heritage and cultural connection that is deeply felt in one's soul.
Q: How was the book’s title chosen, and what does it signify for you?
A: The last line in chapter five inspired the title choice. The line is, “Even if I didn’t realize it at the time, I was living in a little piece of Cuba.” The journey of the book is my quest to find a little piece of Cuba inside myself and to realize that there were little pieces of Cuba threaded throughout my life. It means to me that I am and have always been more Cuban than I thought.
Q: The author Madhushree Ghosh called the book a “memoir rich with cultural and political narratives and threaded with an intense yearning to belong.” What do you think of that description?
A: Madhushree's description really nails the book's central themes, namely how cultural differences and heritage stories fit into our daily lives, how politics and history shape how we see ourselves. Ultimately, every cultural quest is a journey to belong to a family that's bigger than yourself.
Q: What impact did it have on you to write the book, and what do you hope
readers take away from it?
A: Writing this book gave me great confidence in myself as a Cuban American. I may not be what you expect when you think of a Cuban American woman but this is who I am and who I am is Cuban.
I hope that the book causes readers to reflect on their own family narratives and heritage. I know this book has landed for a reader when they immediately begin to tell me a story about their grandmother from another country or their struggles learning English. Everyone has a cultural narrative to share and I hope this book encourages people to share it with pride and generosity.
Q: What are you working on now?
A: I publish a Substack called Tiny Escapes with Barb several times a month that continues to explore the question of how travel informs self-discovery. I also can't wait to get back to my still-unfinished novel about a modern-day good witch and the young woman whose life she saves.
Q: Anything else we should know?
A: December 4 is a big holiday in Cuba honoring the Catholic St Barbara and the Santerian lord Chango, and the tour for A Little Piece of Cuba kicks off in New Orleans at the Garden District Book Shop this December 4.
I am also traveling to my hometown, Columbia, South Carolina, to Boulder, Colorado, and to Miami, Florida, and hosting events in and around my home in New York City in December and January. The book is available on December 2 where books are sold.
--Interview with Deborah Kalb
No comments:
Post a Comment