monkey hunting
“In 1857 a young Chinese man named Chen Pan decides to leave his country and immigrate to Cuba. He’d been promised that the drinking water there “was so rich with minerals that a man had twice his ordinary strength (and could stay erect for days) … that the Cuban women were eager and plentiful … that even the river fish jumped, unbidden, into frying pans.” He was also promised plenty of work. So he boards a ship, and after a three-month voyage that he barely survives, finally arrives at his new home, halfway around the world.”
The Atlantic‘s Jessica Murphy interviews Cristina Garcia, the author of Monkey Hunting which, like her previous novels, explores issues of Cuban identity.