{"product_id":"9780060959098","title":"Dear First Love: A Novel","description":"Zoé Valdés is one of Cuba's most original and imaginative writers. In \u003ci\u003eDear First Love,\u003c\/i\u003e her third novel to appear in English, she spins a tale of one womans spiritual and sexual awakening under the soul-destroying Castro regime.\u003cp\u003eThe numbing rhythm of daily life in poverty-stricken Havana has deadened Danae's mind and spirit. On the verge of a breakdown, she unceremoniously leaves Havana without explanation to her family. In search of her first true love, Danae retreats into the countryside of her adolescence, where the government of Fidel Castro had sent her and other teenagers in the late 1970s to work in the fields under a corrupt and sadistic overseer. It was here, surrounded by a natural world infused with spiritual wonders, that Danae met and fell in love with Tierra Fortuna Munda, a campesino girl her own age. And here the reader falls into the magic of Danae's late childhood, as a wooden suitcase, an ancient ceiba tree, a manatee, even light itself, narrate the gritty, irreverent, erotic, sometimes comic, often tragic life of the young adults in the work camps.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eWhen the adult Danae finds Tierra, their lives are transformed, their love and its mysteries reborn. However, their return to Havana proves to be the ultimate test of love, not only for Danae and Tierra, but also for Danae's desperate family.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003ci\u003eDear First Love\u003c\/i\u003e is a hymn to Cuba and to the soul and spirit of that beleaguered country. In sensuous language, Zoé Valdés renders daily life in urban Cuba and in its countryside, while at the same time exploring the universal themes of love and loss.  \u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"HarperCollins Publishers","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47007910330608,"sku":"9780060959098","price":12.95,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0737\/7593\/9824\/files\/9780060959098_p0.jpg?v=1763620714","url":"https:\/\/shop-qa.barnesandnoble.com\/products\/9780060959098","provider":"Barnes \u0026 Noble (DEV)","version":"1.0","type":"link"}