Anima Fatua is a kaleidoscopic coming-of-age novel about a young girl named Alia. Alia’s Cuban father and Russian mother get divorced when she is 9, and she leaves Cuba – and her best friend Malena – for Soviet Russia. Forced to negotiate her otherness – linguistic, racial, sexual – in a country starting to fall apart at the seams, she flees her unhappy existence in a provincial Russian town and is swept up in the maelstrom of perestroika, freer than ever before, but also more exposed. Relying on acquaintances and strangers for a place to live, she discovers the Soviet Union’s hippie subculture. She soon embraces that lifestyle, meeting a host of larger-than-life characters, including a man who calls himself John Lennon, a mystic named Ofelia and a terrifying moustachioed psychoanalyst. Ultimately, however, none of those she meets can fill the void left by her separation from Malena, her first great love. Originally published in Spanish to much acclaim in 2008, here Anna Lidia fictionalises her own real-life experiences. It has now been translated for the first time into English by Robin Munby. This is a story full of emotional intensity and dark humour. Originally published in Spanish to much acclaim in 2008, here Anna Lidia fictionalises her own real-life experiences. It has now been translated for the first time into English by Robin Munby. This is a story full of emotional intensity and dark humour.
Born in the former USSR, to a Russian/Ukrainian mother and Cuban father, Anna Lidia settled definitively in Havana, Cuba, in 1989. Originally a visual artist, in 1997 she won the Premio David for her first short-story collection, Bad Painting. She has become a recognised figure in the Cuban literary scene, with eight short-story collections, three books of poetry and two novels, participating in literary events throughout Europe and the Americas. Through both her words and her painting, her work is noteworthy for its very personal reflection of daily life, grindingly yet magically real, as experienced in present-day Cuba. Many of her short stories have appeared in English, in publications such as American Chordata, Exchanges, Guernica, Two Lines, Words Without Borders and Your Impossible Voice. In 2019, she completed a tour of US universities, speaking about her creative process, as well as about race and gender in Cuba.
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