Revolution Sunday by Wendy Guerra: book review

Revolution Sunday (2018) is set in Havana, Cuba, in contemporary times.

Her editor from Catalonia, Spain, telephones thirty-something-year-old Cleo from Havana, Cuba, to announce her success in a literary award for her poetry book. Cleo rarely got out of bed, and now someone wants her to get out of the country.

It was a brief trip to Spain, and she is back in Havana, but it has kickstarted Cleo’s life again. Now what? She has to write another book to show that her writing is as good as people think it is. But the Cuban government is suspicious and places her under surveillance as a dissident – as a Cuban deserter. A State Security man follows her everywhere.

She meets famous Hollywood actor Geronimo Martines from Nicaragua. He wants to make a film about her father who was killed when Cleo was only six months old. She doesn’t know anything about her father, and her mother is no longer living. When Geronimo produces documents about him, she sees information she has never seen before. And now, State Security is suspicious of Geronimo.

In the film, as they ‘unravel the complex path’ to know her father, Geronimo plays the role of her father – and Cleo falls in love with him.

Scattered throughout Cleo’s narrative are her poems for her next anthology – and 12 more appear at the end of the book.

I like Wendy Guerra’s descriptions of light, and all the references embedded in the novel around this motif: ‘sunshine’ – ‘enlightenment’ – ‘transparent light’ – ‘phosphorescence’ – ‘sunny truth’ – ‘blackout’ – ‘it dawned on me’ …

Colours too are important in this novel – ‘moist orange’ – ‘scarlet white’ – ‘violet clouds bleed at dusk’ – ‘a brackish rainbow’ …

But mostly, I like the structure. This is both a novel and a poetry anthology; both of which are interesting for their vividness of descriptions and exploration of feelings.

MARTINA NICOLLSis an international aid and development consultant, and the authorof:- Similar But Different in the Animal Kingdom(2017), The Shortness of Life: A Mongolian Lament (2015), Liberia’s Deadest Ends (2012), Bardot’s Comet (2011), Kashmir on a Knife-Edge (2010) and The Sudan Curse (2009).

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