Alicia is a smart, confident and gorgeous prostitute in Havana. She is
not a street-walker. Rather, she displays her wares on bicycle, seducing
men through the irresistible pull of her fine derrière. John King, her
new client, is a Canadian businessman with a striking resemblance to
movie star Alain Delon. This is no ordinary "John" and Alicia's feelings
for him grow; she sees in their relationship the possibility of escape
from her dead-end life in a Havana plagued with scarcity. When John
King's wealthy and sexually deviant boss is suddenly killed, Alicia and
John hatch a get-rich-quick scheme. A web of deception is woven, but
just as quickly unraveled disastrously, and only one person is able to
say adiós" to the dilapidated island of Cuba.
Daniel Chavarría was born in Uruguay in 1933. He spent the 1960s
involved in several South American liberation struggles. He fled the
continent and settled in Havana, Cuba, where he has resided since 1969.
From 1975 to 1986, Chavarría worked as a translator of literature into
Spanish, and taught Latin, Greek and Classical Literature at the
University of Havana. His novels, short stories, literary journalism,
and screenplays have reached audiences across Latin America, Europe, and
Asia. Chavarría has won numerous literary awards around the world,
including a 1992 Dashiell Hammett Award. Adiós Muchachos is his first
novel to be translated into English. In 2002, Akashic Books will publish
his mystery novel, The Eye of Cybele, set in ancient Greece.
