The Apartment A Novel

From the critically acclaimed author of In Cuba I Was a German Shepherd comes a new novel about the search for freedom and the power of community that spans decades of residents in one Florida apartment

The Helena is an art deco apartment building that has witnessed the changing face of South Miami Beach for seventy years, observing the lives housed within. Among those who have called apartment 2B home are a Cuban concert pianist who performs in a nursing home; the widow of an intelligence officer raising her young daughter alone; a man waiting on a green card marriage to run its course so that he can divorce his wife and marry his lover, all of whom live together; a Tajik building manager with a secret identity; and a troubled young refugee named Lenin. Each tenant imbues 2B with energy that will either heal or overwhelm its latest resident, Lana, a mysterious woman struggling with her own past.

Examining exile, homesickness, and displacement, The Apartment asks what—in our violent and lonely century—do we owe one another? If alone we are powerless before sorrow and isolation, it is through community and the sharing of our stories that we may survive and persevere.

Ana Menéndez has published four books of fiction: Adios, Happy Homeland!, The Last War, Loving Che, and In Cuba I Was a German Shepherd. She has worked as a journalist in the United States and abroad, lastly as a prize-winning columnist for The Miami Herald. As a reporter, she wrote about Cuba, Haiti, Kashmir, Afghanistan, and India. Her work has appeared in Vogue, Bomb Magazine, The New York Times, and Tin House and has been included in several anthologies, including The Norton Anthology of Latino Literature. She has a B.A. in English from Florida International University and an M.F.A. from New York University. From 2008 to 2009, she lived in Cairo as a Fulbright Scholar. She has also lived in India, Turkey, Slovakia, and The Netherlands, where she designed a creative writing minor at Maastricht University in 2011. She is currently an associate professor at Florida International University with joint appointments in English and the Wolfsonian Public Humanities Lab.