A Corner of the World

"Mylene Fernandez offers us a magnificent gift. Her story of lost love and the difficult pursuit of literature is at the same time an X-ray of life in Havana, set in a present where glimpses of the future have not yet arrived."—Leonardo Padura, author of The Man Who Loved Dogs and the Mario Conde novels of Havana

In contemporary Havana, "Do I stay or do I go?" is always the question, and love doesn't necessarily conquer all.

A cautious, reserved professor of Spanish Literature, Marian has no idea that her quiet life is about to be turned upside down. When she's asked to review the work of a young, ambitious first-time novelist, she meets Daniel, and their love affair leads her to question both the choices she's made so far in her life and the opportunities she might yet still have.

Theirs is the story of an intense and impossible love, set in today's Havana, a city where there can be no plans, where chance is the order of the day and a fierce sense of loyalty and pride coexists with the desire to live beyond the island's isolation.

"The fresh panorama of Cuban society today is painted without taboos or constraints, with a faith in human possibilities, and above all with a courage that stems from what is most legitimate and durable in ourselves."—Nancy Morejón, author of Looking Within: Selected Poems and Piedra Pulida

"A Corner of the World is about desires and dreams, and, of course, about love."—Achy Obejas, author of Days of Awe and Ruins

"Like the best of Truman Capote, another master of the short novel, Mylene Fernández gives us a cast of unforgettable characters: contradictory, complex, and human."—Fernando Pérez, director of Suite Habana, Life Is to Whistle, and Madagascar

"To read this book is to encounter one of the best and most intimate works of Cuban literature of the 21st century."—Mabel Cuesta, author of Cuba post-soviética: un cuerpo narrado en clave de mujer

"A sad, erotic, tender, and sometimes ironic tale of passion and desertion. … the city becomes a co-protagonist, a confidante, a point of departure and return, and of waiting."—Senel Paz, novelist and screenwriter of Strawberry and Chocolate, Things I Left in Havana, and In the Sky with Diamonds