Otro Dia: An Ode to the Queen of Cuba

"Te quiero tanto que te podria matar." I love you so much I could kill you. Silvia Campos, a frustrated housewife who kills birds with her eyes, conjures the light and darkness of spirit possession in this provocative story of smoking ancestors, memories of Cuba, and Afro-Caribbean magic. Moved by the power of a bewitched machete, she becomes obsessed with the prospect of killing her husband, Chiche, who she blames for the twenty (and counting) years of suffocating life in America. The shameless Cubanity of Southwest Miami serves as a backdrop for a thick, hearty plate of wive's tales, rumors, and jokes taking us back to Spain and the African Diaspora. Silvia's case captures the subtleties of religion's effect on delusions of influence, to the crossroads where witchcraft and insanity meet. Otro Dia is a Latin-American novel, highlighting the impression of Latin Literature on the emerging culture of 'First-Generation Spanglish', and is like every Cuban tale: boisterous, raw, exorbitant, and best over an espresso.