Adios, Happy Homeland

In this follow-up to her beloved, prize-winning debut, In Cuba I Was a German Shepherd, a New York Times Notable Book of the Year, Ana Menéndez delivers a liberating, magical, and modern take on the idea of migration and flight.

Adios, Happy Homeland! is a wildly innovative collection of interlinked tales that challenge our preconceptions of storytelling. This critical look at the life of the Cuban writer pulls apart and reassembles the myths that have come to define her culture, blending illusion with reality and exploring themes of art, family, language, superstition, and the overwhelming need to escape—from the island, from memory, from stereotype, and, ultimately, from the self. We’re taken into a sick man’s fever dream as he waits for a train beneath a strange night sky, into a community of parachute makers facing the end in a windy town that no longer exists, and onto a Cuban beach where the body of a boy last seen on a boat bound for America turns out to be a giant jellyfish.

With Adios Happy Homeland!, Menéndez puts a contemporary twist on the troubled history of Cuba and offers a wry and poignant perspective on the conundrum of cultural displacement. Smart, accessible, and literary, it is a captivating portrayal of how stories are translated, (mis)interpreted, and shaped across time and traditions.

Ana Menéndez was born in Los Angeles, the daughter of Cuban exiles. She is the author of three previous books of fiction, In Cuba I Was a German Shepherd, which was a New York Times Notable Book of the Year and whose title story won a Pushcart Prize; Loving Che; and The Last War, chosen by Publishers Weekly as one of the Top 100 Books of the Year. Since 1991 Ana has worked as a journalist in the United States and abroad, most recently as a prize-winning columnist for The Miami Herald. As a reporter, she has written about Cuba, Haiti, Kashmir, Afghanistan, and India, where she was based for three years. Her work has appeared in Vogue, Bomb, Poets & Writers, and Gourmet, and has been included in anthologies such as Cubanisimo! and American Food Writing. A former Fulbright Scholar in Egypt, she now lives in Maastricht and Miami. Visit Ana's website at anamenendezonline.com