Waiting for Snow in Havana: Confessions of a Cuban Boy is a 2003 book by Carlos Eire

Carlos Eire

Carlos M. N. Eire is the T. Lawrason Riggs Professor of History and Religious Studies at Yale University. He is a historian of late medieval and early modern Europe.- Career :Before joining the Yale faculty in 1996, he taught at St...

 and winner of the National Book Award

National Book Award

The National Book Awards are a set of American literary awards. Started in 1950, the Awards are presented annually to American authors for literature published in the current year. In 1989 the National Book Foundation, a nonprofit organization which now oversees and manages the National Book...

. The book is autobiographical,about the author's experiences as part of Operation Peter Pan

Operation Peter Pan

Operation Peter Pan , was an operation coordinated by the United States government , the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Miami, and certain Cubans. Between 1960 and 1962, over 14,000 children were sent from Cuba to Miami by their parents...

.

Author

Professor Eire, who received his PhD

PHD

PHD may refer to:*Ph.D., a doctorate of philosophy*Ph.D. , a 1980s British group*PHD finger, a protein sequence*PHD Mountain Software, an outdoor clothing and equipment company*PhD Docbook renderer, an XML renderer...

 from Yale University

Yale University

Yale University is a private, Ivy League university located in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Founded in 1701 in the Colony of Connecticut, the university is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States...

in 1979, specializes in the social, intellectual, religious, and cultural history of late medieval and early modern Europe. He has a strong focus on both the Protestant and Catholic Reformations; the history of popular piety; and the history of death. He is the author of War Against the Idols: The Reformation of Worship From Erasmus to Calvin (1986); From Madrid to Purgatory: The Art and Craft of Dying in Sixteenth Century Spain (1995); and co-author of Jews, Christians, Muslims: An Introduction to Monotheistic Religions (1997). He has also ventured into the twentieth century and the Cuban Revolution in Waiting for Snow in Havana (2003), which won the National Book Award in Nonfiction, 2003.

Prizes

Waiting for Snow in Havana has been chosen as the Philadelphia One Book, by Philadelphia Mayor John Street.

"In 1962, Carlos Eire was one of 14,000 children airlifted out of Cuba-exiled from his family, his country, and his own childhood by the revolution. The memories of Carlos's life in Havana, cut short when he was just eleven years old, are the heart of this stunning, evocative, and unforgettable memoir.

"Waiting for Snow in Havana" is both an exorcism and an ode to a paradise lost. For the Cuba of Carlos's youth-with its lizards and turquoise seas and sun-drenched siestas- becomes an island of condemnation once a cigar-smoking guerrilla named Fidel Castro ousts President Batista on January 1, 1959. Suddenly the music in the streets sounds like gunfire. Christmas is made illegal, political dissent leads to imprisonment, and too many of Carlos's friends are leaving Cuba for a place as far away and unthinkable as the United States. Carlos will end up there, too, and fulfill his mother's dreams by becoming a modern American man- even if his soul remains in the country he left behind.

Narrated with the urgency of a confession, "Waiting for Snow in Havana" is a eulogy for a native land and a loving testament to the collective spirit of Cubans everywhere."