The Black Cathedral: A Novel

by Marcial Gala

Other authorsAnna Kushner (Translator)
Hardcover, 2020

Status

Available

Publication

Farrar, Straus and Giroux (2020), 224 pages

Description

"The story of an enormous cathedral constructed in a marginal, majority-black neighborhood in Cienfuegos, Cuba, told by a chorus of narrators whose sometimes conflicting, overlapping accounts knit together to form a portrait of the neighborhood and the family of outsiders whose arrival in Cienfuegos sparks a series of dramatic events"--

User reviews

LibraryThing member Dreesie
Cienfuegos, Cuba. Using many narrators and short chapters, Gala tells a story of a neighborhood in a poor part of town. The story itself is fine--but the story telling is what makes it interesting. There is a constant strain of race deciding value--from prostitutes to laborers to teens to
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businessmen (running legal and illegal businesses). Their is La Rusa, a Ukrainian immigrant, bar owner, and pimp; Yasimi, his top girl with green eyes; Gringo; Guts; Piggy; Berta; the five Stuarts; Araceli; a ghost; Maribel; Barbaro; and many others. All narrate. All are a bit unreliable. Many make a living illegally--from minor offenses to horrible things. And as the story goes on, we see who succeeds at their dreams, who fails, and who has a perfectly average, normal life.
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Language

Original language

English
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