Aboard the Reconnaissance, the vessel where Natives of My Person takes place, a member of the crew, a young and boastful carpenter, banters with a more experienced crewmember who tells the carpenter that he has much to learn. “You are too young to have much history,” he warns the carpenter. The carpenter’s pride is hurt, so he boasts of the skills and achievement of his ancestors, of the lineage of craftsmen to which he was born and he says, “I have a lot history in my hands.” 

You can also read more about Kellman's Tracing JaJa and 2018's Casa de las Américas Prize honourable mentions for Tell My Mother I Gone to Cuba by Sharon Milagro Marshall and Canouan Suite & Other Pieces by Philip Nanton here.

Last updated May 5, 2018.