Cristina García
Encyclopedia
Cristina García is a Cuba
n-born American
journalist and novelist. After working for Time Magazine as a researcher, reporter, and Miami bureau chief, she turned to writing fiction. Her first novel, Dreaming in Cuban
(1992), received critical acclaim and was a finalist for the National Book Award
. She has since published her novels The Agüero Sisters (1997) and Monkey Hunting
(2003), and has edited books of Cuban and other Latin American literature
. Her fourth novel, A Handbook to Luck, was released in hardcover in 2007 and came out in paperback in April 2008.
to a Guatemala
n father and Cuba
n mother. In 1961, when she was two years old, her family was among the first wave of people to flee Cuba
after Fidel Castro
came to power. They settled in New York City
where she was raised in Queens
, Brooklyn Heights, and Manhattan
, in predominantly Irish, Italian, and Jewish neighborhoods. Her family, however, communicated at home in Spanish and shared many stories about Cuba during her youth, and she says that she has always thought of herself as Cuban.
In 1979 she completed a Bachelor's degree in Political Science at Barnard College
, where she says a course in English stirred her interest in literature. She earned a Master's degree in International Relations from the Johns Hopkins University
School of Advanced International Studies in 1981. During her graduate studies she spent a year in Italy
and later returned to Europe to accept a marketing position with Procter & Gamble
in West Germany
, but left that job after three months.
that she held for a short time before becoming a reporter for the Knoxville Journal.
In 1983 she was hired by Time Magazine. Beginning there as a reporter/researcher, she became the publication's San Francisco correspondent in 1985, and its bureau chief in Miami for Florida
and the Caribbean
region in 1987. In 1988 she was transferred to Los Angeles
. She terminated her employment with Time to write fiction full-time in 1990.
. García gave birth to her daughter Pilar six months after its release, and says that her preoccupation with her pregnancy and giving birth had kept her from realizing the impact the book had had until she was doing book tours in 1997.
She struggled to write a strong second novel for two years before abandonning that work to start on The Agüero Sisters, which was released in 1997 and awarded the Janet Heidiger Kafka Prize
. She says the inspiration for it was a visit many years earlier by a Cuban aunt to her mother in Miami that ended abruptly and left long-standing negative feelings.
While she is often portrayed as an important Cuban-American voice in American literature, she reports experiencing some unease in relating to other Cubans — both with those still in Cuba and those in exile in Florida. Some question why she writes in English. Others take issue with her lack of engagement in anti-Castro causes. She has said she attempts to emphasize in her novels the fact that "there is no one Cuban exile". In 2007 that she also said that she "wanted to break free of seeing the world largely through the eyes of Cubans or Cuban immigrants. After the first three novels—I think of them as a loose trilogy—I wanted to tackle a bigger canvas, more far-flung migrations, the fascinating work of constructing identity in an increasingly small and fractured world." Abani, Chris http://bombsite.com/issues/99/articles/2899 “Cristina García” BOMB Magazine
Spring 2007. Retrieved August 3, 2011 At this time García described this "bigger canvas" as including, "the entrapments and trappings of gender in my novel", partly because "it would be easy, and overly simplistic, to frame everything in terms of equality, or cultural limitations, or other vivid measurables. What’s most interesting to me are the slow, internal, often largely unconscious processes that move people in unexpected directions, that reframe and refine their own notions of who they are, sexually and otherwise." Abani, Chris http://bombsite.com/issues/99/articles/2899 “Cristina García” BOMB Magazine
Spring 2007. Retrieved August 3, 2011
While García has expressed these desires to move away from a purely Cuban narrative voice and/or anti-Castro sentiments, the influence of her heritage is made clear when she discusses the symbolism and characters in her work. She has said, about the symbol of a tree, for example:
In 2009, Garcia was hired as the Visiting Affiliate Professor and Black Mountain Institute Teaching Fellow in Creative Writing at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, where she has been hired for one year (Fall 2009-Spring 2010) as a visiting professor.
Cuba
The Republic of Cuba is an island nation in the Caribbean. The nation of Cuba consists of the main island of Cuba, the Isla de la Juventud, and several archipelagos. Havana is the largest city in Cuba and the country's capital. Santiago de Cuba is the second largest city...
n-born American
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
journalist and novelist. After working for Time Magazine as a researcher, reporter, and Miami bureau chief, she turned to writing fiction. Her first novel, Dreaming in Cuban
Dreaming in Cuban
Dreaming in Cuban is the first novel written by author Cristina García, and was a finalist for the National Book Award. This novel moves between Cuba and the United States featuring three generations of a single family. The novel focuses particularly on the females—Celia del Pino, her daughters...
(1992), received critical acclaim and was a finalist for 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...
. She has since published her novels The Agüero Sisters (1997) and Monkey Hunting
Monkey Hunting
Monkey Hunting is a 2003 novel by Cristina García.-Plot summary:The novel follows three generations of one family: Chen Pan, who leaves China in 1857 on the promise of success in Cuba only to find himself enslaved as an indentured worker; his Chinese granddaughter, Chen Fang, who is raised as a boy...
(2003), and has edited books of Cuban and other Latin American literature
Latin American literature
Latin American literature consists of the oral and written literature of Latin America in several languages, particularly in Spanish, Portuguese, and indigenous languages of the Americas. It rose to particular prominence globally during the second half of the 20th century, largely due to the...
. Her fourth novel, A Handbook to Luck, was released in hardcover in 2007 and came out in paperback in April 2008.
Early life and education
García was born in HavanaHavana
Havana is the capital city, province, major port, and leading commercial centre of Cuba. The city proper has a population of 2.1 million inhabitants, and it spans a total of — making it the largest city in the Caribbean region, and the most populous...
to a Guatemala
Guatemala
Guatemala is a country in Central America bordered by Mexico to the north and west, the Pacific Ocean to the southwest, Belize to the northeast, the Caribbean to the east, and Honduras and El Salvador to the southeast...
n father and Cuba
Cuba
The Republic of Cuba is an island nation in the Caribbean. The nation of Cuba consists of the main island of Cuba, the Isla de la Juventud, and several archipelagos. Havana is the largest city in Cuba and the country's capital. Santiago de Cuba is the second largest city...
n mother. In 1961, when she was two years old, her family was among the first wave of people to flee Cuba
Cuba
The Republic of Cuba is an island nation in the Caribbean. The nation of Cuba consists of the main island of Cuba, the Isla de la Juventud, and several archipelagos. Havana is the largest city in Cuba and the country's capital. Santiago de Cuba is the second largest city...
after Fidel Castro
Fidel Castro
Fidel Alejandro Castro Ruz is a Cuban revolutionary and politician, having held the position of Prime Minister of Cuba from 1959 to 1976, and then President from 1976 to 2008. He also served as the First Secretary of the Communist Party of Cuba from the party's foundation in 1961 until 2011...
came to power. They settled in New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
where she was raised in Queens
Queens
Queens is the easternmost of the five boroughs of New York City. The largest borough in area and the second-largest in population, it is coextensive with Queens County, an administrative division of New York state, in the United States....
, Brooklyn Heights, and Manhattan
Manhattan
Manhattan is the oldest and the most densely populated of the five boroughs of New York City. Located primarily on the island of Manhattan at the mouth of the Hudson River, the boundaries of the borough are identical to those of New York County, an original county of the state of New York...
, in predominantly Irish, Italian, and Jewish neighborhoods. Her family, however, communicated at home in Spanish and shared many stories about Cuba during her youth, and she says that she has always thought of herself as Cuban.
In 1979 she completed a Bachelor's degree in Political Science at Barnard College
Barnard College
Barnard College is a private women's liberal arts college and a member of the Seven Sisters. Founded in 1889, Barnard has been affiliated with Columbia University since 1900. The campus stretches along Broadway between 116th and 120th Streets in the Morningside Heights neighborhood in the borough...
, where she says a course in English stirred her interest in literature. She earned a Master's degree in International Relations from the Johns Hopkins University
Johns Hopkins University
The Johns Hopkins University, commonly referred to as Johns Hopkins, JHU, or simply Hopkins, is a private research university based in Baltimore, Maryland, United States...
School of Advanced International Studies in 1981. During her graduate studies she spent a year in Italy
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
and later returned to Europe to accept a marketing position with Procter & Gamble
Procter & Gamble
Procter & Gamble is a Fortune 500 American multinational corporation headquartered in downtown Cincinnati, Ohio and manufactures a wide range of consumer goods....
in West Germany
West Germany
West Germany is the common English, but not official, name for the Federal Republic of Germany or FRG in the period between its creation in May 1949 to German reunification on 3 October 1990....
, but left that job after three months.
Career in journalism
After returning to the United States, García pursued a career in journalism, after having worked as a part-time "copy girl" with the New York Times . While at Johns Hopkins, she obtained an intern position with The Boston GlobeThe Boston Globe
The Boston Globe is an American daily newspaper based in Boston, Massachusetts. The Boston Globe has been owned by The New York Times Company since 1993...
that she held for a short time before becoming a reporter for the Knoxville Journal.
In 1983 she was hired by Time Magazine. Beginning there as a reporter/researcher, she became the publication's San Francisco correspondent in 1985, and its bureau chief in Miami for Florida
Florida
Florida is a state in the southeastern United States, located on the nation's Atlantic and Gulf coasts. It is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the north by Alabama and Georgia and to the east by the Atlantic Ocean. With a population of 18,801,310 as measured by the 2010 census, it...
and the Caribbean
Caribbean
The Caribbean is a crescent-shaped group of islands more than 2,000 miles long separating the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean Sea, to the west and south, from the Atlantic Ocean, to the east and north...
region in 1987. In 1988 she was transferred to Los Angeles
Los Ángeles
Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...
. She terminated her employment with Time to write fiction full-time in 1990.
Novelist
García's first novel, Dreaming in Cuban, was published in 1992. She has said that it contained ideas that had been percolating inside her throughout the 1980s, especially after her visit to Cuba in 1984. The book received very favorable critical attention and was nominated for the National Book AwardNational 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...
. García gave birth to her daughter Pilar six months after its release, and says that her preoccupation with her pregnancy and giving birth had kept her from realizing the impact the book had had until she was doing book tours in 1997.
She struggled to write a strong second novel for two years before abandonning that work to start on The Agüero Sisters, which was released in 1997 and awarded the Janet Heidiger Kafka Prize
Janet Heidiger Kafka Prize
The Janet Heidinger Kafka Prize is annually awarded for fiction by an American woman.The Susan B. Anthony Institute for Gender and Women's Studies and the Department of English at the University of Rochester have awarded the Janet Heidinger Kafka Prize for fiction by an American woman since...
. She says the inspiration for it was a visit many years earlier by a Cuban aunt to her mother in Miami that ended abruptly and left long-standing negative feelings.
While she is often portrayed as an important Cuban-American voice in American literature, she reports experiencing some unease in relating to other Cubans — both with those still in Cuba and those in exile in Florida. Some question why she writes in English. Others take issue with her lack of engagement in anti-Castro causes. She has said she attempts to emphasize in her novels the fact that "there is no one Cuban exile". In 2007 that she also said that she "wanted to break free of seeing the world largely through the eyes of Cubans or Cuban immigrants. After the first three novels—I think of them as a loose trilogy—I wanted to tackle a bigger canvas, more far-flung migrations, the fascinating work of constructing identity in an increasingly small and fractured world." Abani, Chris http://bombsite.com/issues/99/articles/2899 “Cristina García” BOMB Magazine
Bomb Magazine
BOMB is a quarterly magazine edited by artists and writers. It is composed, primarily, of interviews between creative people working in a variety of disciplines — visual art, literature, music, film, theater and architecture....
Spring 2007. Retrieved August 3, 2011 At this time García described this "bigger canvas" as including, "the entrapments and trappings of gender in my novel", partly because "it would be easy, and overly simplistic, to frame everything in terms of equality, or cultural limitations, or other vivid measurables. What’s most interesting to me are the slow, internal, often largely unconscious processes that move people in unexpected directions, that reframe and refine their own notions of who they are, sexually and otherwise." Abani, Chris http://bombsite.com/issues/99/articles/2899 “Cristina García” BOMB Magazine
Bomb Magazine
BOMB is a quarterly magazine edited by artists and writers. It is composed, primarily, of interviews between creative people working in a variety of disciplines — visual art, literature, music, film, theater and architecture....
Spring 2007. Retrieved August 3, 2011
While García has expressed these desires to move away from a purely Cuban narrative voice and/or anti-Castro sentiments, the influence of her heritage is made clear when she discusses the symbolism and characters in her work. She has said, about the symbol of a tree, for example:
"In Afro-Cuban culture, the ceiba tree is also sacred, a kind of maternal, healing figure to which offerings are made, petitions placed. So absolutely, for me trees do represent a crossroads, an opportunity for redemption and change. In Dreaming in Cuban, Pilar Puente has a transformative experience under an elm tree that leads to her returning to Cuba. Chen Pan, in Monkey Hunting, escapes the sugarcane plantation under the watchful protection of a ceiba tree…In A Handbook to Luck, Evaristo takes to living in trees as a young boy, to escape the violence of his stepfather. He stays there for years, first in a coral tree and then in a banyan. From his perches, he witnesses the greater violence of the civil war in El Salvador and speaks a peculiar poetry, born, in part, of his co-existence with trees."
Current life
García lived with her daughter Pilar in Los Angeles and taught at Mills College in Oakland, California.In 2009, Garcia was hired as the Visiting Affiliate Professor and Black Mountain Institute Teaching Fellow in Creative Writing at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, where she has been hired for one year (Fall 2009-Spring 2010) as a visiting professor.
Awards and honors
- Dreaming in Cuban a finalist for the 1992 National Book AwardNational Book AwardThe 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...
- 1996 Whiting Writers' AwardWhiting Writers' AwardThe Whiting Writers' Award is an American award presented annually to ten emerging writers in fiction, nonfiction, poetry and plays. The award is sponsored by the Mrs. Giles Whiting Foundation and has been presented since 1985. As of 2007, winners receive US $50,000.-External links:**...
for fiction - 1997 Janet Heidiger Kafka PrizeJanet Heidiger Kafka PrizeThe Janet Heidinger Kafka Prize is annually awarded for fiction by an American woman.The Susan B. Anthony Institute for Gender and Women's Studies and the Department of English at the University of Rochester have awarded the Janet Heidinger Kafka Prize for fiction by an American woman since...
for The Agüero Sisters - 2008 Northern California Book Award for Fiction for A Handbook to Luck