Is Cuban a Genre?
When I first saw the full-page ad in the Chicago Reader for this year’s Story Week, I must admit that I was as baffled as I was delighted to find a photograph of Achy Obejas in it, positioned above the theme of the festival, “Genre Bending: The Faces of Fiction.” Sure, she’d edited an anthology of stories by Cuban writers called Havana Noir, but, by and large, her own writing has never struck me as genre fiction. I couldn’t imagine that bookstores would shelve her explorations of ethnic, national, political, and sexual boundaries within the confines of romance, mystery, horror, fantasy, or science fiction and I wasn’t comfortable with the thought of her work being segregated from mainstream literature because she’s a woman, or gay, or Cuban. Is Cuban a genre? I think not. But the fact that many bookstores do, indeed, subscribe to such policies of exclusion prompted one of the many fascinating exchanges in the panel discussion that featured Obejas.
In it, we learned that she was marketed as a “queer writer” early in her career as a novelist. “At Women and Children First,” she said, “it’s the place to be. But at Barnes and Noble, where’s the queer section? Back there…behind the Marxist section.” Patricia Ann McNair, the event’s host, joined Obejas in riffing on The Wizard of Oz, Obejas saying “The Marxists, the queers, and the Jews,” and McNair answering, “Oh, my.” The failure of big chain bookstores to properly place and promote authors like Obejas led her, years ago, to partner with her girlfriend in what she playfully referred to as a “guerilla movement” to stealthily re-shelve books.
We can laugh at the futility of this prank, but there is no denying that one of the things that most characterizes this author is her spirit of rebellion. Although she expresses affection for “all three of her homes,” in Chicago, in Havana, and in Oakland, where her girlfriend lives, she doesn’t hesitate to raise questions in her work about the social and political landscapes of both America and Cuba, both capitalism and communism, all the while managing to resist oversimplifications.
In tonight’s discussion, we discovered that this same spirit of rebellion is at work behind the scenes, before and after publication. For example, it was particularly gratifying for her to publish Havana Noir because, when initially discussing the book with one of Cuba’s minor cultural officials, comparing lists of possible contributors, she was told that she wouldn’t be able to find any good crime fiction written by women and that black people really only liked to write poetry. Obejas remembers thinking at that time, “Did you just say that to me? In a country that’s overwhelmingly of color?”—and then later, after the book’s successful publication—“Half women. People of color. Fuck you, buddy.”
On another occasion, a representative of the Ministry of Culture explained why a segment of her novel, Ruins, would be censored. He said, “Well, it’s not political in the traditional sense. In one of your scenes, Fidel, 13-year-old Fidel, he looks at a boy’s penis.”
“But it wasn’t erotic,” she explained. “It was because he’s been circumcised and is horribly mangled.”
“I’m sorry. Fidel cannot look at a penis.”
Despite conversations such as this one, some censorship, and the controversial themes of her books, Obejas has succeeded in being touted in Cuba as a Cuban writer—not Cuban-American, but Cuban. “For me, there was kind of a perverse pride in that,” she said. Of course, meanings shift over time and space, and the phrase “Cuban writer” does not mean here in the States what it means on the island. Given her pride in that label, however, and the excitement with which she described the insatiable literary appetites of her fellow Cubans, their “black market” of books, and the cynicism that keeps them from appreciating romance novels, it does not seem like she would mind all that much if she walked into Barnes and Noble and found her work on shelves marked “Cuban.” She’d still do some re-shelving, no doubt, but maybe she’d do it with a smile on her face. I’d like to think so. I’m part Cuban, too.
EVENT: GENRES FROM AFAR READING, CONVERSATION, AND SIGNING | TUESDAY, MARCH 16, 2010 AT 6PM | HAROLD WASHINGTON LIBRARY | AN EVENT OF COLUMBIA COLLEGE CHICAGO’S STORY WEEK FESTIVAL OF WRITERS
