Memory Mambo

Memory Mambo describes the life of Juani Casas, a 25-year-old Cuban-born American lesbian who manages her family's laundromat in Chicago while trying to cope with family, work, love, sex, and the weirdness of North American culture. Achy Obejas's writing is sharp and mordantly funny. She understands perfectly how the romance of exile—from a homeland as well as from heterosexuality—and the mundane reality of everyday life balance one another. Memory Mambo is ultimately very moving in its depiction of what it means to find a new and finally safe sense of home.

Achy Obejas is the author of We Came All the Way From Cuba So You Could Dress Like This? and Days of Awe. She has won numerous writing awards, including a National Endowment for the Arts Creative Writing Fellowship and the 1996 Studs Terkel Journalism Award. She lives in Chicago.