The Bridge from Cuba
The night of February 20, 2014 an overflow crowd of passionate Cuban-American fans awaited the island writer, Leonardo Padura, at the Coral Gables Congregational Church. Books & Books, the...
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Searching for Home
There was a time – I was still young, in my mid-20s – when I thought I was going to be a perennial traveller, a woman without a country or permanent address, a vagabond. Not that I was ever the...
View ArticleWanderer, There is No Road: Remembering Juan Roura-Parella and the Lovely Teresa
I was a student both of Professor Juan Roura-Parella and his wife, the lovely Teresa. Professor Roura taught me about aesthetics and philosophy, Goya’s black paintings, the poetry of Antonio Machado,...
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Brutus, July, 1998- April, 2015
Gabriel asked for a dog several times when he was a little boy. But we didn’t want to get a dog. “Too much trouble,” we said. “Who needs a dog? Neither of us had a dog when we were growing up and we...
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Poetry & Friendship
I think many of us dream of writing poetry when we are young. We try our hand at it a couple of times, amass pages in a notebook, and eventually find the courage to print out a few fledgling poems. Our...
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From Real Life to the Magic of Fiction
Illustration by Rolando Estévez I’ve spent most of my life writing nonfiction. But I always dreamed of being a fiction writer. Now, at the age of sixty, I am making my debut as a fiction writer. My...
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Getting the Call about the Pura Belpré Award
I was out dancing tango on a Sunday night with a small group of friends at the Agave Tequila Bar on Main Street in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Then I got the call. Bittersweet love tunes filling the room...
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Read Ruth’s Pura Belpré Award acceptance speech
Ruth Behar received the 2018 (Pura) Belpré Author Award for Lucky Broken Girl (Nancy Paulsen/Penguin Random). Her acceptance remarks were delivered at the Belpré Celebración on Sunday, June 24, 2018,...
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The Story behind the Cover Art for Letters from Cuba
Ruth Behar interviews John Parra As an author, it is always exciting to see how an artist evokes the heart of your story in one single compelling image for the book cover. I was thrilled when my...
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Guest Post with Ruth Behar: The Island that Remains in Us
Hi everyone, From time to time, I have the pleasure of hosting guest authors on this site. Today it’s my honor to kick off Hispanic Heritage month with a lovely guest post by 2018 award-winner Ruth...
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