Breathe, by Leila Segal (Lubin & Kleyer £6.99) is a stunning debut collection of short stories set in Cuba. Segal, a Londoner, spent time living in Havana, specifically its remote province of Pinar del Rio and these stories derive from that experience.
There are nine altogether, spanning a mere 126 pages, yet Segal's writing is so acute and perceptive that she manages to evoke a full life into even the briefest of them.
The title story, Breathe, is only six pages long. A young female tourist from an overcrowded city tells the Cuban who prepares her diving equipment: "I came from a place where they stole your life, a place that forgot all time in its haste. Every day there was less air".
Most of her protagonists are foreigners: tourists, who have come to Cuba looking for something - sex, community, idealism. Though not overtly political, Segal nonetheless highlights the gap and imbalance of power between people, rich and poor, male and female, tourist and local.
Her writing is spare, intense, sensual and visceral. She paints pictures with words and the stories have the immediacy of poetry.
Her writing is spare and sensual. She paints pictures with words
In The Party, a young English woman, Anna, meets the family of her Cuban boyfriend for the first time. There is confused expectation and suspicion on both sides and Anna is unable to enter into the alien world of her hosts.
On seeing an old woman preparing food, "with a peculiar look in her eyes", Anna is poignantly reminded of her own mother back in England: "thinking of romance long gone, and she alone, left to cook in a dirty kitchen. I saw my mother, youth etched beneath her sagging face; I saw the future with her not there".
We get snapshots of the lives of a range of people. In Leaving Cuba, Pavel prepares for a trip to Paris to visit his French girlfriend. And Segal skilfully balances his sadness and apprehension at leaving his family against the excitement promised by the new life opening up for him.
This is a stark, unsentimental portrait of Cuba. Those who want an undiluted romantic view may be disappointed, but these stories are so powerful and emotionally true, they make an unforgettable impact. Would that the Bailey or Man Booker Prize judges could recognise Leila Segal's unique voice.
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