Ricardo Pau-Llosa

The reality of that Cuba into which I was born and would be expelled from at the age of six is made all the more dramatic by the complete distortion with which most Americans, indeed most Cubans my generation or younger, view that period of Cuban history. The facts speak for themselves: Cuba was the only nation that was modern in style, outlook, dynamism and Latin American in essence. Indeed, more than any other country in the region Cuba shaped what everyone has come to think of as ALa tin American,and it did this through its music, its attitude toward life, and its pioneering literature and visual arts. The loss of this unique homeland was at that time, when I was six, very painful for me, and has become only more so with time.