Author Panel, Cuba

Sponsored by Needleman Management

In conversation with Amy Stanley, Director of Sari Isdander Early Childhood Center

A.J. Sidransky, Incident at San Miguel

Based on a true sto­ry, A.J. Sidransky’s new his­tor­i­cal nov­el takes read­ers to Cuba in 1958. Fidel Cas­tro, Che Gue­vara, and their rebel com­rades are work­ing to over­throw Ful­gen­cio Batista’s dictatorship.  Two brothers, mem­bers of Cuba’s Jew­ish com­mu­ni­ty, are caught up in this whirl­wind of change and as tumul­tuous events unfold. The estranged broth­ers even­tu­al­ly meet again in New York, a vis­it that coin­cides with the bomb­ing of the World Trade Cen­ter. Although they argue pol­i­tics as usu­al, they soon come to under­stand that fam­i­ly is the most impor­tant part of life. 

Aaron Hamburger, Hotel Cuba, A Novel

Life in big-city Pro­hi­bi­tion-era Havana is over­whelm­ing, like noth­ing Pearl and Frie­da could have imag­ined in the rur­al shtetl where they grew up. A heart­break­ing, epic fam­i­ly sto­ry, Hotel Cuba explores the pro­found courage of two women dis­placed from their home who strive to cre­ate a new future in an entic­ing and dan­ger­ous world far dif­fer­ent from any­thing they have ever known.