I was Silvio Canto’s podcast guest, and had the distinct pleasure of talking to writer Orlando Luis Pardo Lazo, whose work I have greatly admired,
Wednesday Oct 5: A chat with Orlando Luis Pardo-Lazo about Cuba today….click to listen…..https://t.co/c3MQ4yJZnR
— Silvio Canto, Jr. (@SCantojr) October 5, 2016
As an introduction to Pardo Lazo’s work, I very highly recommend La Habana abandonada, available in English as Abandoned Havana (both in Kindle or paperback).
Abandoned Havana is a gem of a book, each chapter illustrated with the author’s photography followed by a prose snapshot that introduces recurrent themes you will find in his other works (Boring Home, Del clarín escuchad el silencio: 59 poemas de amor y una canción contrarrevolucionaria, Cuba in Splinters). An accessible work, with clear, spare yet incisive prose that lays bare the corrosion that totalitarianism inflicts on the human soul, Abandoned Havana is a must-read.