Lorenzo Ramos

Otro Dia: an Ode to the Queen of Cuba Lorenzo Ramos

"Te quiero tanto que te podria matar." I love you so much I could kill you. Silvia Campos, a frustrated housewife who kills birds with her eyes, conjures the light and darkness of the human spirit in this provocative story of smoking ancestors, memories of Cuba, and Afro-Caribbean magic. Moved by the power of a bewitched machete, she becomes obsessed with the prospect of killing her husband, Chiche, who she blames for the twenty (and counting) years of suffocating life in America. Her story documents the subtleties and horrors of spiritual possession, highlighting the tensions of religious syncretism and cultural revolution in the Cuban-American narrative. The shameless Cubanity of Southwest Miami serves as a backdrop for a thick, hearty 'Grandma's slice' of wive's tales, rumors, and jokes tracing back to the days of Spain and the African Diaspora. Issues of race, gender, and family relationships blossom into a tale of the beautiful, human space that transforms us all in the midst of divine grace and sin. Otro Dia is a fictitious story based on the family narrative of the author, and is like any Cuban tale: boisterously raw, delicious, and exorbitant. It is a Latin-American novel, highlighting the impression of Spanish Literature on the emerging culture of 'First-Generation Spanglish'.