Product Description

A childhood in a privileged household in 1950s Havana was joyous and cruel, like any other - but with certain differences. The neighbour's monkey was liable to escape and run across your roof. Surfing was conducted by driving cars across the breakwater. Lizards and firecrackers made frequent contact. Carlos Eire's childhood was a little different from most. His father was convinced he had been Louis XVI in a past life. At school, classmates with fathers in the Batista government were attended by chauffeurs and bodyguards. At a home crammed with artifacts and paintings, portraits of Jesus spoke to him in dreams and nightmares. Then, in January 1959, the world changes: Batista is suddenly gone, a cigar-smoking guerrilla has taken his place, and Christmas is cancelled. The echo of firing squads is everywhere. And, one by one, the author's schoolmates begin to disappear - spirited away to the United States. Carlos will end up there himself, without his parents, never to see his father again. Narrated with the urgency of a confession, WAITING FOR SNOW IN HAVANA is both an ode to a paradise lost and an exorcism. More than that, it captures the terrible beauty of those times in our lives when we are certain we have died - and then are somehow, miraculously, reborn.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #24780 in Books
• Published on: 2003-05
• Format: Illustrated
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 402 pages

Amazon.co.uk Review
Carlos Eire's memoir of his childhood in Waiting for Snow in Havana: Confessions of a Cuban Boy explodes off the page with the smells, sights, and sounds of the tropics. But the most interesting aspect of his story is the story of the Revolution from a boy too young to know exactly what's happening.

Just nine-years-old when Castro and his fellow revolutionaries overthrew Batista, Eire watched as relatives were arrested, property confiscated, and rights lost. Naturally, it was a confusing time for the boy, as his whole world was turned upside-down by factors both visible, such as militiamen, and invisible. "I woke up to the fact that something had gone awfully wrong with the world that day," writes Eire. "We stood there for a while, all of us, asking questions, complaining... it was the sheer shock of encountering a stupid rule that kept us there, loitering under the marquee." The rule? The movie 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea was suddenly off-limits to minors.

There is no love lost between the author--today a history and religious studies professor at Yale--and the man he calls a "ruthless dictator masquerading as a humanitarian."

Waiting for Snow in Havana is a cry from the heart of a boy torn from family, country, and way of life. Eire was 11 at the time he was shipped off to the US to live with strangers, and the fire still burns in him at the injustice of it. This fury propels his memoir, which is by turns cloying, sentimental, repetitious, and meandering. (Eire can, and does, go on for paragraphs about the shape of clouds. Federico Lorca he is not.) But readers looking for insight into one of the century's most "successful" revolutions will come away from Waiting for Snow with a fresh perspective on a crucial period of Cuban, and world, history. --Shawn Conner, Amazon.ca

Independent on Sunday
'Rich and lyrical'

About the Author
Carlos Eire was born in Havana in 1950 and left his homeland at the age of eleven, one of the 14,000 unaccompanied children airlifted out of Cuba by Operation Pedro Pan. Eire is now the T. Lawrason Riggs Professor of History and Religious Studies at Yale University.

Customer Reviews

Fantastic insight to the real Cuba
Having been to Cuba earlier this year, I read this book whilst on holiday. You can see both sides to the story - the way property and possession were taken for the more affluent of society for what was meant to be for the good of the poorer people, although I am sure they never saw any of the worth. Having visited the museum of the revolution (now I might have been brain washed here so forgive me) you can understand why the revolution took place. Carlos Eire wrote this book in such a way that you know him and his family and you can empathise with them all. I was truely saddened when he and his brother where shipped off to a cold heartless America and saddened for him that he is unable to return to Cuba whilst Fidel is still in existance. I loved the book and I missed Carlos when I had finished it.

Moving Memoir
Carlos Eire wrote an extremely well written memoir. He write's about his childhood in Havana. He gives us vivid pictures of Havana at the time and of the colorful inhabitants of his neighborhood. The world of Havana through the eyes of a child.

The wide eyed wonder in which we see this marvelous world called Havana, makes us stop and wonder. Is this a memoir or novel. The writting of child like innocence is so real. How can we remember it. Of course, this is about Mr. Erie's childhood, during the 50's and 60's. So we also get to see the growing darkness and fear brought about by the great revolution brought about by Fidel Castro...and how all their lives were changed.

It will also let you see why so many Cuban's fled that beautiful island for the USA. Most hoping it would only be a temporary seperation from family and homeland. I not only understood what life was like both before and after Castro...I could actually understand the emotion he felt as a child. And now as an adult looking back upon his past. This is a great read.

Hermosa y intelegente
Waiting for Snow in Havana is a beautiful and lyrical book that gives true insight into what it was like to live in Cuba during the early days of Fidel's Revolution. This novel has captures the true essence of what it means to be Cuban and gives a deep understanding of the exile community in the States.