Ernesto Mestre-Reed

Sacrificio offers an evocative portrait of the difficulties of life for the average Cuban during the country’s late 1990’s “Special Period.” Written in English and untranslated but easy to understand in context Spanish, the novel tells the story of Rafa, a penniless teenaged Afro-Cuban from the rural eastern part of the country. After traveling to the fishing village of Cojímar, he is picked up by Nicolás and taken home with him to Havana to become a waiter in his family’s show more semi-legal restaurant. Welcomed as another son by Nicolas’s strong-willed mother, Cecilia, the family struggles to make do catering to the dwindling number of “Yuma,” foreign tourists.

Cuba’s main source of assistance, the Soviet Union, has collapsed, sending the nation’s economy into a tailspin. Non-lethal bombs aimed at popular tourist locations are going off throughout the city, followed by mysterious graffiti, ‘Sacrificio,’ that pops up everywhere. All this occurs before the arrival of Pope John Paul II in a historic visit the country and Havana is on edge.

Nicolás and his younger brother Renato are slackers, “perfecting the art of la nada, their little charade against revolutionary society,” according to Cecilia. Diagnosed as HIV-Positive, Nicolás is sent to one of Cuba’s AIDS sanatoriums, where the government has controversially quarantined those with the illness. After Nicolás’s death, Rafa becomes closer to Renato, who is also gay and HIV-Positive. When Renato subsequently disappears from the sanatorium, Rafa and Steffan, a German tourist he and Renato had picked up (who may also be a spy for the Cuban government) search for him. They encounter “Los Injected Ones,” Nicolás and Renato’s secret band of counterrevolutionaries, living in a phantasmagorical city on the roofs of abandoned buildings, built with the detritus of Havana. Responsible for the bombings and the ‘Sacrificio’ graffiti, “Los Injected Ones” plan to scare away tourists and topple the government by injecting themselves and others with HIV-Positive blood. They bring Rafa and Steffan into their elaborate plan for a major action during the Pope’s visit.

With its frequent use of flashbacks and stream of consciousness ending, Sacrificio is a dizzying, kaleidoscopic, and captivating mix of coming-of-age story and mordant political commentary with elements of a spy novel.

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