Permanent Condition

During the early 1990s, as Cuba suffered the rationing and blackouts of the post-Soviet Special Period, an agreement made to burnish Cuba’s cultural reputation enabled favoured artists to travel to Mexico as ‘velvet exiles’. I used to hang out with some of these fascinating creatures from an artistic Galapagos. To our surprise, they didn’t have much time for Mexico. They rented flats on Cuba Street and talked about nothing but home. Only one jumped ship to Miami – irrevocably at the time. The others soon went back. In Carlos Manuel Álvarez’s new novel, False War, an elderly man leaves the island for the first time to get medical attention organised by his son, who lives in Mexico City. Coming and going is easier now. The father raves about the cleanliness, the hot water, the availability of everything. Yet he, too, chooses to go home. How to explain the mysterious power of a deprived and repressive island which so many have risked – or lost – their lives to leave?