Yocandra in the Paradise of NADA

""There are those who maintain that people throw themselves into the sea over insignificant economic deprivations,"" writes Valdes of young Cubans desperate enough to raft their way off the island, ""but anyone who says that simply doesn't know Cuba, doesn't know the hunger and the terror the Cuban people have known."" Already published in Germany, Spain and France, this brief first novel exposes the longing and suffering of Cuban society through the life of a woman named Patria, or Yocandra as she renames herself. Born during the 1959 revolution, Yocandra grows up in the gap between the promises of justice and reform and the reality of frustration and apathy. In this country where happiness means that the electricity works occasionally or a pizza with a cheese substitute from China is available for purchase, Yocandra tries to satisfy her burning thirst for life through writing and passionate sex with a series of lovers. Exuberant and uninhibited, Yocandra brims with acerbic insight, philosophy and eroticism. Her exhausting, painful unfulfillment pervades the author's prose. (""Is this a garden or a cemetery? I want a garden. I need a garden. How proud I am to be Cuban! How terrified I am to be Cuban!"") Not a comfortable read, this tale seeks to tell the truth about the state of Cuba's soul, searing like skin under the hot Cuban sun. (May)