Havana Year Zero by Karla Suárez

Translated by Christina MacSweeney

Language: English

It was as if we’d reached the minimum critical point of a mathematical curve. Imagine a parabola. Zero point down, at the bottom of an abyss. That’s how low we sank.

The year is 1993. Cuba is at the height of the Special Period, a widespread economic crisis following the collapse of the Soviet bloc.

For Julia, a mathematics lecturer who hates teaching, Havana is at Year Zero: the lowest possible point, going nowhere. Desperate to seize control of her life, Julia teams up with her colleague and former lover, Euclid, to seek out a document that proves the telephone was invented by Antonio Meucci in Havana , convinced it is the answer to secure their reputations and give Cuba a purpose once more.

From this point zero, Julia sets out on an investigation to befriend two men who could help lead to the document’s whereabouts, and must pick apart a tangled mystery of sex, family legacies and the intricacies of how people find ways to survive in a country at its lowest ebb.

Charco Press (2021)

ISBN 9781913867003

Pages 256

‘An impressive novel’, Le Figaro Littéraire (France)

‘The Name of The Rose is set in Cuba and is now called Havana Year Zero (…) A masterpiece’, Marie Claire ( France )