Videos: Cecilia Samartin, the best selling Cuban American writer talks about her books and about Cuba in a conversation with Eva Belfrage.

 Cecilia Samartin, the best selling Cuban American writer talks about her books and about Cuba in an interview by Cuba Democracia y Vida in the below videos part 1-3.

November 6, 2010

By Eva Belfrage

The Cuban American writer Cecilia Samartin talks about her novels and about Cuba in
the three videos below. She was interviewed by Cuba Democracia y Vida on the 2nd of November 2010, when she was in Stockholm for the launching of "El Peregrino", the first of her books to be translated into Swedish. Cecilia has written four novels, one of which is about Cuba, "The Ghost Heart" also titled "Broken Paradise", and in Spanish "Fantasmas del Corazón". She is a popular and best selling writer, in northern Europe she has particularly attracted Norwegian readers, but will now be known also to Swedish readers.
Samartin received the prestigious Mariposa Award by the the International Latino Book Awards for best first book (English) by a Latina or Latino for her debut novel of 2007, Broken Paradise.

She is a skilled narrator and makes interesting portraits with sympathy for humble personalities. Cecilia Samartin works as a psychologist and her clients are often Latin American immigrants, a source of inspiration for her novels.

Cecilia was born in Cuba, but left Cuba with her family as early as 1961 and has never returned. Her life has however been filled with  stories from Cuba and she belongs to those Cubans in exile, who really suffers with the oppressed Cubans on the island. She is deeply upset with all those intellectuals and others who close their eyes to the reality in Cuba, but she was happy to receive the reactions to her book about Cuba. Readers  said that they had no idea it was so bad in Cuba.

The interview was made in the lobby of Hotel Clarion Sign in Stockholm. Unfortunately our video camera caught all the background music and noice and to be able to hear her voice well  we had to mix a separate sound recording with the video and sometimes with photos only. The interview in English in Part 1, 2 and 3 was made by Eva Belfrage and a Spanish interview is published seperately on this web page.

More information about Cecilia Samartin and her books can be found here.

PART 1

PART 2
 

PART 3

________________________________