'King of Cuba' Author Cristina García's Writing Journey Marked By Personal Discovery

This article is part of Palabras, the Latin Post Latino Author Series.

Cuban-born and New York-raised author Cristina García was inadvertently nudged toward writing by her diary-prying mother. However, it was her own investigation of expression and culture that led to her flourishing career and the creation of her many grabbing works, including her latest, "King of Cuba."

Before García was the author of six impressive novels and a notable journalist, she was a young girl scribbling dreams, thoughts and ideas into her journal. Her feelings, unfortunately, were often uncovered by her mother.

"My mother would read that diary, and I would get in trouble for what I wrote in there. But, there was something about that invasion of privacy, something about the release of secrets that revealed that there was a lot of power in my words," García said to Latin Post. "I got in a lot of trouble, but the power in those words compelled me, and much to my mother's chagrin, she really helped me along [as a writer]. That, and just being a very avid reader from the time I could read, encouraged me to write."

As a journalist at the Boston Globe and Time Magazine, García learned to research and gather materials, and pull a single quote out of a pile of 40. In that career, she also honed an eye for detail, and it's that comprehension of detail that would help her as she reconciled her separated Cuban and New Yorker identities and began to weave culture into stories.

"It wasn't actually until I started writing that all of this Cuban subject matter, Cuban characters and Cuban dreams, started to surface. I was like, 'Damn, I guess these things are closer than I thought.' It was at the same water table, but I hadn't realized it had been mingling and marinating within, and all this great stuff surfaced," said García. "In a way, I was sort of Cuban American all along, but I really just thought of myself as a New Yorker with crazy Cuban parents.

"Now, it's very fluid. I'm often code-switching, speaking part in Spanish and part in English, and finding enigmatic expressions in Cuban [culture], but I'm not normally like that. In a way, identity has become more situational. I'm, maybe, more of a chameleon."

That discovery helped García when she chose to write all of her books, including the emotionally autobiographical fictional novel "Dreaming in Cuban," which was inspired by a trip she took to Cuba in 1983, where she met her grandmother for the first time. Her second novel, "The Agüero Sisters" has a number of components, but was initially sparked by her aunt's visit to her mother's home in Miami, which provoked a devastating fight that led to the two not speaking for the entire visit. The narrative for "Monkey Hunting" grew from an interest in the multiply hyphenated identities in Cuba; the book examining the complex Cuban identity, and Chinese-Cuban and African-Cuban subcultures.

"A Handbook to Luck," a novel set in 1960s California, was motivated by the modernity of L.A. and decision to step away from Cuban analysis. She did that by taking a look at protagonists from the Salvadoran and Iranian community, exploring the larger scoop of immigration waves. "The Lady Matador Hotel," which is set in an unnamed Central American country, is inspired by a trip the author took to Guatemala with her sister and daughter to adopt her niece. During the adoption process they were required to stay at a fancy hotel, which became the fictional setting for the book, hosting Suki Palacios (also known as the Lady Matador), a Korean businessman who contemplates suicide, his pregnant 15-year-old mistress and other prominent characters.

"King of Cuba," her latest novel, marks García's return to Cuban exploration. In the darkly comical dual portrait, a ruthless dictator (Fidel Castro-esque) and an octogenarian Cuban exile who's hell-bent on seeking revenge are starkly contrasted, while the book also examines false dichotomies and employs "a chorus of other voices that constantly undermine everything [the two men] say."

Book-to-book, García believes that her writing has changed. According to the author, the sugary sweet nature of "The Agüero Sisters" is so different from her current writing style that she sometimes she finds it difficult to read.

"That's not what I'm doing now. But, in a way, each book dictates what it needs: the language, the syncopation and the syntax. The characters, in one way or another, are individual enough and they're moving through the world in a way that's not really reproducible to anyone else, at least that's my goal," said García. "I pay attention to the details and the music of the senses. So, the books are really language driven, more than plot driven. It's about language and character for me, and I think that's true across all of my books."

García's upcoming title is tentatively titled "Dear Visitor: A Season in Berlin." After spending three months in Berlin in 2013, she was compelled to write a novel set in contemporary Berlin, where a group of individuals tell their stories to an unnamed visit.