Events

Unfortunately, this event has been cancelled tonight. Poet and novelist PABLO MEDINA will discuss and sign his new novel, CUBOP CITY BLUES, fusing raw, passionate language and elegant lyricism to breathe life into a musically disguised New York City shaped by jazz masters, refugees, and storytellers. Our guide into Cubop City is The Storyteller, born nearly blind to Cuban exiles, closeted in their crumbling apartment and homeschooled through the Encyclopedia Britannica, the Bible, and The Arabian Nights. By age 25 he is sole caregiver for his parents, both stricken with cancer, and he comforts them with stories full of magic, sorrow, longing, and romance, bringing Cubop City colorfully to life, moving through myriad points of view of well-known figures and invented characters. Molded in the cadence and harmony of Afro-Cuban jazz, Cubop City Blues is a symphonic portrait of a bustling urban landscape and the intimate lives and stories that give a city its voice. “[A] haunting love letter to New York…Vivifies the cityscape over many decades with tales of love, death, and exile . . . Rich and accomplished…Medina has a keen eye for the ebb and flow of desire…There is beauty, suffused with a muted melancholy, in Medina’s attempt to capture the rhythms of life.” Publishers Weekly "An enjoyable read that reminds us the world is as expansive as our imagination. Readers who enjoy the work of Omar Torres and Cristina Garcia will want to add Medina to their reading list." Library Journal Pablo Medina was born in Havana, Cuba, and moved to New York at the age of twelve. His is the award-winning author of twelve books of fiction (including The Cigar Roller, a favorite of Carla’s set in Ybor City), non-fiction, translation and poetry. Medina resides in Boston and teaches writing, literature, and translation at Emerson College.