habitat [miguel rey]

Rey’s collection of inter-linked short stories gets under the skin of young Cuban society. It consists of six brief tales, all of them narrated by a disillusioned young man, probably the same one, Liam. Liam works as a tennis coach, giving classes to tourists and the wealthy Havana elite. He inhabits a more sheltered, Westernised Havana, one which feels a long way from any kind of politicised revolution. The book is peppered with acerbic references to contemporary culture, from Hugh Grant to Chris Brown and Rihanna. In one of the stories the narrator has a friend called Maiquel Jordan Zamora, and the author makes the wry observation that people ask: is that his real name? There’s no mention of Che or Fidel. This is a Cuba that is culturally close to the US and Central America. The closest the writing gets to talking about politics is a brief discussion of The Cherry Orchard, and how its title in the Spanish translation is wrong. The narrator then makes a few playful remarks about subtext and his ignorance regarding this, but this is a writer who seems well aware of the significance of the subtext of all his references; the way they both expand and contract the Cuban perspective.

Rather than politics, the stories relate random sexual encounters; tawdry Havana nights; minor porn addiction and tennis coaching. This is low-key living, told in a deadpan style. It has something in common with other seemingly disengaged texts such as Pedro Mairal’s La Uruguaya or even Pauls’ The Past. Tales from a post-political generation. Where the search for meaning isn’t found in big ideas, but in the kinks in the mainframe that can only be registered by experiences lived on an intimate, personal level.