Dancing to ''Almendra'' »

Mayra Montero is the author of a collection of short stories and of eight novels, including, most recently, Captain of the Sleepers (FSG, 2005). She was born in Cuba and lives in Puerto Rico, where she writes a weekly column in El Nuevo Dia newspaper.

From " one of the most exciting and interesting writers of the Americas, North and South" (Julia Alvarez) a spellbinding chronicle of love, murder, and the mob in prerevolutionary Havana

The New York Times - Jim Lewis

… I devoured it with absolute delight, and I m looking forward to reading it again, and to reading anything Montero might come up with next. It s tempting to think in categories it s tempting to me, anyway: so sue me but a good novel denies them, nimbly and without visible effort. This novel is great fun to read, and a paradoxical thing to contemplate. When I was done, I wasn t sure if it was an especially well-written genre story, or a literary book based upon an especially raffish plot. Perhaps there s no difference between the two, after all.