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Overview
Habana flash es un texto de viaje convertido en ficción. Xavier Alcalá, escritor de gran trayectoria literaria, opta en este caso por novelar un viaje partiendo de una historia familiar, en busca de los lugares donde su abuelo hizo fortuna. La ficción está tan próxima a la realidad que algunos personajes aparecen con su verdadero nombre, mientras otros (los revolucionarios frustrados por Fidel), son redibujados con destreza pues en su condición de informantes cubanos están expuestos al castigo. A pesar de estas licencias, Habana flash consigue tal verosimilitud, que resulta imposible no pensar en este libro como un retrato de aquella Cuba que ni siquiera Fidel quiso vislumbrar.
Havana Flash is a travel book converted into fiction. Xavier Alcalá, a writer with an impressive literary trajectory, chooses to write about a trip in which he searches for the places in which his grandfather made his fortune. Fiction is so close to reality that some of the characters appear with their real name while others (the revolutionaries frustrated with Fidel) are carefully redrawn to hide their true identity as they could otherwise face severe punishment for providing the author with certain information. Ten years later, another writer with Cuban roots, Marcelino Fernández Mallo, revisits the visions of Xavier Alacalá and dedicates a preface and prologue in which he talks about the contemporary nature of the book’s message. Xavier Alcalá manages to construct the Cuban reality that flows from the present to the past and that seemingly gets lost in the chaos.