Maria Sirena tells stories. She does it for money, and for love. But now she will be asked to tell one last story so that eight women can keep hope alive.

Cuba, 1963. Hurricane Flora is bearing down on the island. Seven women have been evacuated from their homes into the former governor’s mansion, where they are watched over by another woman, Ofelia, a young soldier of Castro’s new Cuba. Outside the storm is raging. 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. Stories, however, have a way of taking on a life of their own, and Maria Sirena will end up revealing more than she or anyone ever expected.

“The Distant Marvels, like love itself, is both storm and shelter at once.”—Justin Torres, National Book Award-winning author of Blackouts

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