Speaking from her book-lined New York apartment, Goldstein tells me that she chose to translate There's No Turning Back because of its intensity. It's the sort of novel, she says, like Forbidden Notebook (the first De Céspedes' novel Goldstein translated) that pulls you in immediately. Indeed, from its first line, There's No Turning Back propels the reader into the midst of daily life at the Grimaldi pensione-convent: 'As the nun read the last words of the evening prayer, an indolent chorus of girls responded: "Amen"'.
Carlos Manuel Alvarez's second novel is a hugely rewarding, polyphonic narrative of migration from Cuba. Through its characters' rich and eccentric interior worlds, it gives articulation to people whose lives are often reduced to stereotypes and offers a new vision of migration. False War is comprised mostly of 13 interconnected storylines, which alternate irregularly in short episodes. The stories have different timelines and vary significantly in their portrayals of an array of characters, many from Havana, a city of many stray sadnesses.