33 Revolutions

Resumen del libro

A surreal, funny, and touching tale about the absurdities of life in Castros Cuba written by Che Guevaras grandson. Our hero is a black Cuban born to parents who were enthusiastic supporters of the Castro revolution. His father, however, having fallen foul of the regime, is accused of embezzlement, and dies of a stroke. Following her husbands death, his mother leaves the country and settles in Madrid. He is separated from his wife and now spends much of his time in the company of his Russian neighbor, from whom he discovers the pleasures of reading. The books he reads gradually open his eyes to the incongruity between party slogans and the gray oppressive reality that surrounds him: the office routine, the daily complaints of his colleagues about problems big and small, his own obsessive thoughts which circulate like a broken record. Everyday he captures the spontaneous eruptions of dissent on the streets in photographs and witnesses the sad spectacle of young people crowding onto makeshift rafts and leaving the island. Every night he suffers from Kafkaesque nightmares in which he is arrested and tried for unknown crimes. His disappointment and delusion grow until a day comes when he declares his unwillingness to become an informer, and his real troubles begin.