Review by Booklist Review
As in The Black Cathedral (2020), Cuban writer Gala sets his newest work of magical realism in his hometown of Cienfuegos. This tale dramatizes the parallels between Cassandra, the Trojan princess and prophet involved in the Trojan War, and the coming-of-age of a closeted transgender Cuban and his involvement in the Angolan Civil War. The nonlinear plot follows Raúl Iriarte, a blond and blue-eyed Cuban enamored of poetry and classical literature who also happens to be a reincarnation of Cassandra. Raúl's resemblance to his pretty aunt Nancy, his feminine demeanor, and his father's controlling presence complicate matters as he grows up feeling unmoored in a feverish, late-1970s, Marxist-Leninist society on the brink of a violent revolution. Gala switches between shuffled time frames in Raúl's life, during which, like Cassandra, he is resigned to his fate and submits to the psychological and sexual abuse inflicted by those close to him. The appearance of mythical beings during opportune times, Raúl's pitiless predictions, and the unfolding events of a fraught time in Cuban history contribute to the power of Gala's creative spin on an indelible myth and imaginative, memorable, and heartbreaking tale of identity and fatalism.
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
In Cuban poet and novelist Gala's lyrical and elegiac return (after The Black Cathedral), a young man grows up feeling stifled by life in Castro's Cuba. At 10, Rauli Iriarte is effeminate and bookish, imperiled by the strict gender roles embodied by his violent brother, drunken father, and unsympathetic school board. He's more comfortable in the company of his mother and his father's Russian mistress, Svetlana. As it happens, Rauli is also Cassandra, the Greek prophetess of ancient myth, cursed with the knowledge that he will die as a young soldier in Angola, where he is dispatched as part of the Cuban Intervention. There, on "a continent full of ghosts, the ghosts of kings, dark ghosts of dark wizards," he is simultaneously swept up in the Trojan War and forced to relive The Iliad's cycle of death and carnage. Lodged irrevocably between genders, historical periods, and legends, Rauli--who'd rather be acknowledged as Cassandra--must find meaning and purpose in a life he knows to be tragically foreshortened. It's a fascinating premise, but not a whole lot happens. Still, Gala's prose, elegantly translated by Kushner, perfectly conveys the protagonist's dual realities ("We are but shadows set on the canvas of this life, my Zeus," he thinks, while on the battlefield). In the end, the author offers a singular invocation of immortality. (Jan.)
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Review by Library Journal Review
Author of the international award winner The Black Cathedral, published in the United States in 2020, Cuban novelist/poet Gala investigates the failures of Cuba's revolution through visionary ten-year-old Rauli. Rauli doesn't fit in at home or at school, perhaps with good reason. He knows that he was born in the wrong body, that he will die at age 18 as a soldier in Angola, and that he is the reincarnation of the Trojan princess and doomed seer Cassandra.
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Review by Kirkus Book Review
A figure from Greek mythology is reborn in the Caribbean in this novel by the award-winning author of The Black Cathedral (2020). In 1975, Cuba sent troops to support the People's Movement for the Liberation of Angola in that country's civil war. Over the next decade and a half, more than 300,000 Cubans would participate in this proxy war between Soviet-style communism and Western powers led by the United States. This is the historical backdrop for Gala's tale of a boy from the port city of Cienfuegos who believes that he is the reincarnation of Cassandra, the priestess of Apollo "forever condemned to know the future and never be believed." Rauli's sense that he is in the wrong time and place is exacerbated by the fact that he is a slight, fair, bookish boy who likes to wear dresses in a culture that prizes machismo. His difference will make him a target--for other kids, for his fellow soldiers, for the captain who brutally abuses him--but it also gives meaning to a life that he knows will be short. Because he has Cassandra's curse, he knows that he will die in Angola at 19. Before he dies, though, he will converse with Greek gods and African orishas and be accompanied by a chorus of Erinyes that gives his story the shape of classical tragedy. Fate hangs over this novel. Rauli cannot escape his doom any more than the nymph Thetis can protect her son, Achilles, by dressing him as a girl. Of course, the clothes that are meant to disguise Achilles' true nature reveal Rauli's, but it's a truth that he is compelled to keep hidden. The Cuban conscript is not a great warrior, and his grave will be an unmarked patch of jungle, but--unlike the hero of the Iliad--Rauli has the power to give voice to his own story. A haunting meditation on identity and violence. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
