Cubafruit - Paperback

by Alexander Sorondo (Author)

An award-winning historian is drinking coffee in a Miami courtyard, 30 minutes before the most important interview of his career, when he gets a call from an unlisted number.

"I'm looking at you through a rifle scope. Don't hang up."

He can tell from her accent that the caller is from San Mara. A political exile, most likely, from the Caribbean nation he's been studying for years, whose fascist leader, the late Omar Basto, is the leading subject of his four-volume biography.

The biographer is appearing on the show for two reasons: the third volume of his Basto biography has just been released, but also because Basto himself, missing and presumed dead since 2000, seems to have re-appeared online.

Shaky footage from a street market in Ecuador.

Photos from a cruise ship in Mexico.

The shooter's instructions are simple: Stay on the line with me until you get the call. Loop me in. Let me speak.

But staying on the line won't be easy. A curious police officer, an aggressive bystander, and a mysterious death nearby will challenge their plans, and exploit their defenses, as the shooter and biographer fall into a philosophical argument about who owns history: those who fight for the future, or those who rewrite the past.

Sprawling, fast-paced, and splashed with magical realism, Cubafruit is a deeply-researched story about political violence, the exilic experience, and the three-way scramble for power among those who seek it, those who lose it, and those who tell their story.