Spotlight on Carlos Eire

This year’s selection for Philadelphia’s annual “One Book, One Philadelphia” program is “Waiting for Snow in Havana: Confessions of a Cuban Boy” by Carlos M.N. Eire.

From the Philadelphia Daily News:

“Waiting for Snow in Havana: Confessions of a Cuban Boy” is a searing tale of recent Cuban history written by one who was there, Carlos M.N. Eire.

Eire shares, with vivid detail, his young life in Cuba, the advent of the Castro revolution, and his arrival in America.

This is the program’s fifth year, a collaborative effort involving the mayor’s office, the library and Independence Blue Cross, the program’s lead sponsor.

In announcing the book’s selection at the Free Library yesterday, Mayor Street said there was “nothing more important than education, and nothing is more important to education than books.”

Eire, a professor of history and religious studies at Yale, said: “I am humbled and thrilled about this, which was a book I wasn’t even supposed to write, and I am especially thrilled it’s in Philadelphia.

“The intention behind writing this book is to not publicize my life, but to make one thing clear, which is that all human beings hunger for freedom.”

That theme courses through Eire’s book, winner of 2003’s National Book Award. He weaves a harrowing tale of survival, including the time his family drove into a shootout between rival militiamen, and when they had to flee from house to house to escape other gunfire and the troops of Cuban President Fidel Castro.

“Waiting for Snow in Havana” is especially dark when Eire talks of Castro and his ruthless henchmen.

Congratulations Professor Eire! Especially pleasing is that 3,000 copies of this wonderful book will be distributed to high school students.

Read the rest of the article here.