A Little Piece of Cuba - by Barbara Caver (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

For fans of Chanel Cleeton's Next Year in Havana, a real-life story of how a young woman's five-day trip to Cuba, her mother's birthplace, completely changed her view of herself as a second-generation American.

When Barbara Caver was growing up in South Carolina, her Cuban roots were as mysterious as the embargoed island her mother had been born on but left in 1959. For Barbara, Cuba represented a heritage that she'd never understood and couldn't fully embrace. When she moved from South Carolina to New York, the vibrant diversity of the city and new friendships with other Cuban Americans made her curious about her mother's home country. Finally, in 2017, she traveled to Cuba.

Immediately upon arriving in Havana, Barbara was struck by a sense of the familiar: tiles on a backsplash looked like tiles in her grandparents' home, the airport smelled like a childhood memory, local dishes tasted like her grandmother's cooking, and a morning stroll through Vedado delivered her to the front gate of her great-grandmother's home--despite the fact that she didn't have the address. She wasn't just visiting a foreign country; she was being welcomed home.

Part travel adventure, part ghost story, and part memoir, A Little Piece of Cuba: A Journey To Become Cubana-Americanais an imaginative and humorous personal journey through Barbara's memories and experiences as she discovers that she is and has always been more Cuban than she thought.

Review Quotes

"The perfect read for anyone who loves rich origin stories, Cuban history, and the warm glow of hearing it all over cafe con leche and maduros at abuelita's kitchen table."--Brooke Siem, author of May Cause Side Effects

"A memoir rich with cultural and political narratives and threaded with an intense yearning to belong."--Madhushree Ghosh, author of Khabaar: An Immigrant Journey of Food, Memory and Family

"Barbara Caver beautifully recounts her journey to reclaim her Cuban-American identity. Her lyrical prose creates a rich narrative encompassing family tradition, cuisine, culture, and history. The result is a story as warm, lively, and colorful as the streets of modern-day Havana, where family memories beckon at every turn. It is a memoir that will resonate with anyone who has struggled to understand their family's past and embrace their place in it."--Vicki Mayk, author of Growing Up On The Gridiron: Football, Friendship, and the Tragic Life of Owen Thomas

"An evocative, poignant, and fearless journey. Caver has, with sensitivity and wit, pierced through her family's generational trauma of being ripped from their homeland to claim her rich heritage that fills her like a soothing Cuban café con leche. With joyful optimism, she has distilled the gift of being beautifully bi-cultural."--Kathryn K. Abdul-Baki, author of Dancing Into the Light: An Arab-American Girlhood in the Middle East

"A heartfelt memoir of identity, memory, and rediscovery, A Little Piece of Cuba captures one woman's journey from South Carolina to Havana--and from uncertainty to belonging--as she reclaims her Cuban heritage through language, food, family stories, and five unforgettable days in the land her ancestors once called home."--Alicia M. Rodriguez, author of The Shaman's Wife: A Mystical Journey of Surrender and Self-Discovery

About the Author

Barbara Caver is a lifelong student of the arts and is an accomplished film and television production executive. She loves traveling, exercising, hiking, dancing, cooking, and eating, as well as writing about all of these things with great enthusiasm, affection, and humor. A Little Piece of Cuba is her first full-length memoir. Raised in South Carolina, Barbara currently resides in Jackson Heights, New York City.