The Forbidden Stories of Marta Veneranda

STORIES OF THE MAD, THE BAD, THE CURIOUS AND THE INEXPLICABLE IN HUMAN BEHAVIOUR A daisy chain of eight interlinking stories that read like a novel, this dazzling collection from Cuban-born writer Sonia Rivera-Valdes introduces a circle of loosely connected Latin immigrants in New York City who drift in and out of each other’s bizarre lives. Mayte is a Cuban journalist who is married but tormented by her love for her female cousin. Rodolfo is Mayte’s co-worker with an uncontrollable lust for his odorous fat neighbour. Rodolfo’s friend is a gay man oddly obsessed with straight porn, and Marta is an abused housewife who finds liberation from her philandering husband with self-help books that advise her to poison him to death. Beneath the wry and often black humour of this collection is a serious examination of the coming together of Anglo and Latino cultures.