Caviar with Rum

JACQUELINE LOSS is an Associate Professor of Latin American Literary and Cultural Studies at the University of Connecticut, USA. Her publications include Cosmopolitanisms and Latin America: Against the Destiny of Place (2005, Palgrave) and the co-edited collection, New Short Fiction from Cuba (2007, Northwestern University Press). Her book Dreaming in Russian that treats Cubans' memory of the Soviets in the arts is forthcoming from the University of Texas Press. JOSÉ MANUEL PRIETO was born in Havana, Cuba, in 1962. He is the author of several works of fiction and nonfiction including the internationally acclaimed Enciclopedia de una vida en Rusia (Encyclopedia of a life in Russia), Livadia (published in English as Nocturnal Butterflies of the Russian Empire), Rex, and El Tartamudo y la rusa (short stories). His Voz humana (Human Voice) is forthcoming. He has been a fellow at The New York Public Library's Center for Scholars and Writers and has been the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship. José Manuel Prieto taught at the Centro de Investigación y Docencia Económica (CIDE) in Mexico City, Cornell University as a Visiting Professor, and at Princeton University as a Distinguished Lecturer. He currently teaches at Seton Hall University.

PART I: OSTALGIE: CUBAN STYLE The Muñequitos Rusos Generation—Aurora Jácome, Translated by Katherine M. Hedeen Nostalgia—Reina María Rodríguez, Translated by Kristin Dykstra Roxy the Red—Pedro González Reinoso, Translated by Dick Cluster PART II: COMMUNICATING VESSELS The Rebellious Children of the Cuban Revolution: Notes on the History of Cuban Sots Art —Juan Carlos Betancourt, Translated by Antonio Garza Toward a Cuban October—Ernesto Menéndez, Translated by Elizabeth Bell Around the Sun: The Adventures of a Wayward Satellite—Jorge Ferrer, Translated by Anna Kushner The Mammoth That Wouldn't Die—Carlos Espinosa Domínguez, Translated by Elizabeth Bell Heberto Padilla, the First Dissident (of the Cuban Revolution)—José Manuel Prieto, Translated by Jorge Castillo PART III: RECALCITRANT AJIACO …So, Borscht and the Ajiaco Don't Mix?: An Essay of Self-ethnography on the Young Post-Soviet Diaspora in Cuba—Dmitri Prieto Samsonov and Polina Martínez Shvietsova, Translated by Kristina Cordero Dispatches from the War Zone—Tonel Fnimaniev! Fnimaniev! The Hare and the Turtle: The Black 'Mona'—Gertrudis Rivalta Oliva, Translated by Jacqueline Loss Persistent Matriushkas—Jacqueline Loss PART IV: THE IMAGINARY TRACTOR The Inventor, the Machine, and the New Man—Ariana Hernández-Reguant What the Russians Left Behind—Yoss, Translated by Daniel W. Koon PART V: DIPLOMATIC AND ECONOMIC COQUETTERIE Socialism as the Main Soviet Legacy in Cuba—Yuri Pavlov Havana and Moscow in the Post-Soviet World—Mervyn J. Bain