Achy Obejas

This superb innovative by Cuban-born author and bard Obejas (Memory Mambo) pursues the article of Usnavy, who, regardless of a bleak childhood in a little provincial town beside Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, accomplishes his rightful location in the world as a benchmark bearer for Castro and Che after the 1959 revolution. However, this all alterations in 1994, when the Cuban government allows any and all to depart Cuba by any and all means. Usnavy's best ally departs without a phrase, and abruptly the dollar becomes the currency for all items essential to his wife and daughter—and to himself.

In the midst of this turmoil, Usnavy's only unchanging is his dignity in the oversized stained-glass light he inherited from his mother, and for the first time he becomes inquisitive about its origins. He hunts for out information from the aptly entitled Virgilio, a restorer of vintage glass lights, and is directed through the Dantean mazes of Havana and a mystery family history.

Although primarily bewildering, Obejas's composing method competently mimics the contrive, as the scribe navigates a maze of past notes and ethnicities. Canonization also distorts literature and introduces predictable biases in interpretation. Canons of literature may fossilize their subject and reduce its study to dry memorization for its own sake. The rules by which the canonical texts are selected tend to favor the powerful and to exclude or marginalize the powerless, regardless of the merits of their work. Or, rather, "merit" will become unconsciously identified as a property "naturally" belonging to the powerful, and "naturally" unavailable to the powerless.

The values and tastes of the powerful will turn the process of canon formation and its product into a cultural prison. But does this mean we cannot have informed discussion of canons without allowing them to imprison our values and tastes? Think about ...