havana year zero (w. karla suárez, tr. christina macsweeney)

Suárez’ novel is a whimsical account of a turbulent year. In 1993, following the collapse of the USSR, Cuba is cut off from Soviet subsidies. The country is plunged into extreme poverty. People dream of escape, or madcap get-rich schemes which have no chance of coming to fruition. Suárez’s protagonist, Lucia, (a pseudonym, we are told, as are all the names in the book), is told by her former maths professor, Euclid, that a document exists proving the telephone was invented in Cuba, by an Italian scientist-inventor called Antonio Meucci. Euclid has fallen on hard times and convinces Lucia, who is also his former lover, that if they can find the document it will transform their fortunes. Her search leads her to Angel, (who will be her future husband), a novelist, Leandro, and an Italian woman, Barbara, all of whom have their own reasons for wanting the document, and all of whom might potentially already have it in their possession. Inevitably this scheme starts to collapse under the weight not so much of its unlikeliness, but because of the tangled personal web that is being woven, seemingly by the document itself. People fall in and out of love, and this is what changes lives, rather than any kind of deus ex machina. Suárez' novel is breezy and readable, offering a glimpse of the joys of Havana and the way in which these pleasures are sustained, no matter the economic situation. It is also perhaps notable for the absence of any political commentary, something which is usually seen as de rigeur in a novel from the socialist caiman island. 

chacabuco (d roberto suárez)

Suárez is the maverick genio of the Rio Platense stage. Roberto Arlt meets David Lynch. HIs characters are oddballs, wackos, weirdos, but bizarrely loveable. They’re loveable because they all belong to the same family. Literally, in so far as all the characters in Chacabuco are related, metaphorically, in so far as they are all off the spectrum somewhere, and theatrically, in that Suárez takes several years to develop, rehearse and produce his shows, meaning his band of actors become as tight and incestuous as a family unit. Sometimes this kind of process might not pay off, but in Chacabuco it does so, spectacularly. The players interact like a finely honed machine, aware of every look, every nuance of their companions' behaviour. It’s a play where it’s just as compelling observing those who aren’t speaking as those who are. The word is shared around between the company, something to be usurped or exchanged or held on to sometimes, as a character makes a bid for the attention they believe they, as a character in this unlikely tale, deserve. However, above and beyond the word, the feature which defines Chacabuco is the quality of the silences. A silence speaks as much if not more than words. Silence is that moment of strange uncertainty on stage, as though the characters and the audience are given pause to think: where are we going? Are we on the right course or are we completely fucked? The spectators, like the characters, are never really sure. In fact we’re not even sure if we’re living in the present or some other, parallel Borgesian time. There are about fifteen endings to Chacabuco, which is normally not a good sign. But when you’ve worked on a play for several centuries, you can get away with it. The wonder is that each ending is an advance or improvement on the last one, until we finally get to the last delirious end, which blows the mind and then comes back to stroke the mind with a send-off full of strange tenderness.