Ana Menéndez was born in Los Angeles, the daughter of Cuban exiles. She is the author of three previous books of fiction, In Cuba I Was a German Shepherd, which was a New York Times Notable Book of the Year and whose title story won a Pushcart Prize; Loving Che; and The Last War, chosen by Publishers Weekly as one of the Top 100 Books of the Year.
Since 1991 Ana has worked as a journalist in the United States and abroad, most recently as a prize-winning columnist for The Miami Herald. As a reporter, she has written about Cuba, Haiti, Kashmir, Afghanistan, and India, where she was based for three years.
Her work has appeared in Vogue, Bomb, Poets & Writers, and Gourmet, and has been included in anthologies such as Cubanisimo! and American Food Writing. A former Fulbright Scholar in Egypt, she now lives in Maastricht and Miami.
Visit Ana's website at anamenendezonline.com
Marvelous . . . What makes this book so liberating is the way it
plays tricks with language and perception, offering glimpses of
inner lives that are almost too inventive for words. --More
Arrestingly brilliant.--Junot Diaz (interview with The Rumpus)
Dazzling . . . As bold in its execution as in its conception . . .
It is rare enough for an American writer to muster the energy to
construct such an intricate work; it is unthinkably rarer for such
formal intricacies to serve some aesthetic or philosphical purpose
beyong themselves. But this is precisely the case with Adios, Happy
Homeland! Menendez's fictions are never content merely to display
their finely wrought strangeness. Almost every text 'collected'
here would, considered on their own, outshine in comparison the
majority of American short fiction; take together, the effect is
vertiginously powerful. . . . An effortless, balletic braiding of
the subjective and the objective. --The National Ana Menendez's
fiction--her stories, even when disguised as philosophy or poetry
or journalism or tongue-in-cheek humor--are always more
imaginative, vital, and puzzling than expected . . . Excellent
examples of contemporary short fiction at its finest . . .
remarkably diverse . . . Menendez's writing is crystal clear. She
has both the courage and the vitality to evoke many diverse voices
in such a convincing way. It's a joy to read such uncluttered,
unabashed, and vivd prose, and to penetrate more deeply into
contemporary Cuba's still unrevealed heart.--The Rumpus A
thought-provoking, humorous, sometimes dizzying collection . . .
[with] graceful, poignant lyricism . . . A brilliant and inventive
work: fractured, layered storytelling conveys the unsettling
experience and shifting sense of indentity that exile brings.--The
Huffington Post Ana Menendez lets her imagination soar with this
nonlinear, unpredictable, and challenging book. . . . Toys with
conventional notions of time, space, and casuality. . . . She hooks
you, her beginnings are often flawless. . . . Radiates deep
affection for [Cuba]. --The Miami Herald Can only be described one
way: enthralling . . . Menendez has invented an ingenious
collection. . . . Fabulous . . . incredibly quirky and endlessly
enjoyable . . . A refreshing piece of modern literature . . . A
great perspective on the wild imaginations that we
develop.--Examiner.com "Everywhere you turn in Adios, Happy
Homeland! you find a beautiful meld of tradition and modernism, an
admirable mastery of irony, and a lyrical deposition on exile and
homecoming. Take this balloon ride across the
Carib-Cubano-Americano sea and landscape and you will relish the
view.--Alan Cheuse "A deft, playful collection . . . Revitalizing .
. . Part love song to Cuban literature and lore, part Borgesian
encyclopedia of the subspecies of flight, part questioning of the
very conditions of fiction-making--and all charming."--Kirkus
Reviews [Menendez] begins with a blend of Cuban history, myths, and
tales of escape from the island, and adds irony and humor to create
linked stories full of hope, struggles to transcend our earthly
ties, and longing to return to what one hopes to flee. She plays
with reality as though it were a puzzle, mixing and rearranging the
pieces. . . . Menendez's voice is a vital force in Latino
literature, brimming with a distinctive magical realism woven out
of both traditional and modern elements of the everday wiorld.
--Booklist "Innovative . . . A necessary purchase for Cuban
American collections."--Library Journal Never have I had so many
expectations--of both literature and people--overturned in one
book. . . . Adios, Happy Homeland! tears apart the flat picture of
Latin America and the Caribbean that has been painted over the past
few decades. . . . One of the most honest books I have ever
encountered . . . Strange and wonderful . . . What emerges from the
tangle of narratives that makes up Adios, Happy Homeland! is a
meditation on the ways that literature and identity intersect. . .
. An act of literary destruction . . . Menendez pulls the carpet
out from under us, and we must start seeing the world afresh.--New
World Reviews
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