In my other books about Cuba, I've
imagined the voices of brave young people
who made hopeful choices in times
that must have seemed hopeless.
Some of the characters are fictional, but most of them
are real people from history.
And I'm going to skip through just some book covers,
and actually not talk about them in great detail right now.
But I would like to mention that this one is not
a famous historical figure.
This one is about my own grandmother.
I wrote the stories that she told me about her childhood,
growing up in Cuba on a farm, during the period immediately
following the surrender treaty, just a few years later.
She was born, she lived a very long time.
And she lived over 100 years--
104.
So she actually saw well into this century.
Imagine the changes from just a few years
after the surrender treaty to having passed away
just a few years ago.
Imagine how much change one person can see in their life.
But she lived in very turbulent times.
There was a lot of chaos following
the last of those wars after the Americans occupied Cuba.
And she also had dyslexia.
So it was a struggle for her to learn to read and write.
And I wanted to write the stories that she told me
about those struggles.
Every day each one of us makes choices
that affect other people.
Wondering how others feel can be one of our best guidelines
for our choices.
That is what a writer does-- wonders.
So in writing The Surrender Tree,
I wondered what did it feel like to be Rosa la Bayamesa
or to be Silvia, to live in that time and place.
And writing The Wild Book, I wondered about my grandmother's
feelings.
I also wonder about the sights, sounds, smells,
tastes thoughts and actions of my characters.