The story of a lifetime told in the eye of a hurricane. Maria Sirena tells stories. She does it for money—she was a favorite in the cigar factory where she worked as a lettora—and for love, spinning gossamer tales out of her own past for the benefit of friends and family. But now, like a modern-day Scheherazade, she will be asked to tell a story so that eight women can keep both hope and themselves alive. Cuba, 1963. Hurricane Flora, one of the deadliest hurricanes in recorded history, is bearing down on the island. Seven women have been evacuated from their homes and herded into the former governor’s mansion, where they are watched over by another woman, a young soldier of Castro’s new Cuba named Ofelia. Outside the storm is raging and the floodwaters are rising. In a single room on the top floor of the governor’s mansion, Maria Sirena begins to tell the incredible story of her childhood during Cuba’s Third War of Independence; of her father Augustin, a ferocious rebel; of her mother, Lulu, an astonishing woman who fought, loved, dreamed, and suffered as fiercely as her husband. Stories, however, have a way of taking on a life of their own, and, swept up by her story’s momentum, Maria Sirena will reveal more about herself than she or anyone ever expected. Chantel Acevedo’s The Distant Marvels has the epic scope of a contemporary Gone with the Wind and a faith in the power of storytelling equal to Martel’s Life of Pi. It is a family saga, a love story, a stunning historical account of the struggle against oppressors, and a long tender plea for forgiveness. The Distant Marvels is, finally, a life-affirming novel about love that lasts a lifetime and the very art of storytelling itself.

Chantel Acevedo
Chantel Acevedo was born in Miami to Cuban parents. She is the author of A Falling Star, Love and Ghost Letters, winner of the Latino International Book Award, Song of the Red Cloak, and The Distant Marvels, a finalist for the 2016 Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction. Acevedo is an Associate Professor of English in the MFA Program at the University of Miami.

• Sep 11 2017
  Further Reading: Hurricanes
  — Booklist Reader
• Aug 6 2017
  37 Books About Cuba to Inspire & Inform Your Travels
  — Wayfaring Views
• Apr 3 2016
  "...a moving revelation of a long and often turbulent life..."
  — Insights Magazine
• Dec 31 2015
  2015 Latino Books: 8 Must-Reads from Indispensable Small Presses
  — NBC Latino
• Sep 23 2015
  THE DISTANT MARVELS has been long listed for the 2016 Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction!
  
• Sep 1 2015
  For the first USpeak Flash Fiction & Poetry Performance Series of the 2015/16 year, students and the community at large were in for a treat: Chantel Acevedo reads!
  — The Miami New Times