DICK CLUSTER landed in Havana's José Martí airport for the first time in 1969 and has been fascinated by the city ever since, exploring it by foot, bicycle, city bus, tour bus, car, ferryboat, and other means. An Oakland resident, he is a translator of Latin American literature, most recently editing and translating the collection Kill the Ámpaya: The Best Latin American Baseball Fiction and Mylene Fernández Pintado's novel of contemporary Havana, A Corner of the World. Previous nonfiction books include They Should Have That Cup of Coffee, about U.S. radical movements of the '60s and '70s, and Shrinking Dollars, Vanishing Jobs, about the U.S. economy.
RAFAEL HERNÁNDEZ is the editor of Temas, a Cuban quarterly in the field of history, culture, economics, and politics. Hernández graduated from the University of Havana with a degree in French literature, and from the Colegio de México in political science. He has oriented, guided, and taught many American visitors to Cuba, whether students, academics, or travelers, and been visiting professor and researcher at Columbia, Harvard, Johns Hopkins, the Woodrow Wilson Center, Tulane, and the University of Puerto Rico, and lectured at numerous other schools and academic conferences. His publications include three books of poetry and ten books of essays. His essay collection Looking at Cuba won the Cuban Critics Award in 2000, and was published by the University Press of Florida in 2003.
Leonardo Padura was born in 1955 in Havana and lives in Cuba. He has published a number of novels, short story collections and literary essays but international fame came with the Havana Quartet, all featuring Inspector Mario Conde, of which Havana Blue is the third to be available in English Critically acclaimed translator known for extensive work on Juan Goytisolo. Also translated Daniel Chavarria and Pedro de Alarcon from Cuba.
Leonardo Padura has just won the 2015 Princess of Asturias Literary prize for his life’s work. This prize is said to be the Spanish Nobel Prize. Previous winners include Philip Roth, John Banville, Margaret Atwood, Amin Maalouf and Ismail Kadare. Padura is most famous for his Inspector Mario Conde novels, all published in English by Bitter Lemon Press.
