Reinbou - by Pedro Cabiya (Hardcover)

About the Book

"Reinbou explores the consequences of political and societal upheaval, corruption, and violence in modern Dominican society through the eyes of a child in Santo Domingo after the Civil War of 19655"--

Book Synopsis

"Reinbou is a gem [and] I feel as if I've found a treasure at the end of a reader's rainbow." --Julia Alvarez, author of The Cemetery of Untold Stories and the international bestseller In the Time of the Butterflies

"Cabiya evokes the Dominican Republic's heat and passion with frank and poetic prose and the excitement of a spy thriller. This is teeming with life." --Publishers Weekly

In the Time of the Butterflies meets Woman of Light in this propulsive work of historical fiction about U.S. intervention and corruption in the Dominican Republic.

The basis of the 2017 film adaptation by Andrés Curbelo and David Maler.

In 1976 Santo Domingo, Ángel Maceta uncovers the real story behind the murder of his father, Puro Maceta, ten years prior. In the process, events that unfolded during and after the war are revealed, unleashing a series of small revolutions in his community that in turn unravel other intrigues of what really took place during the Civil War of 1965.

Weaving together the brutal realities of war with the innocence of childhood imagination, Reinbou explores this era in Dominican society, a time when the U.S. sent Marines into the country to back a coup against Juan Bosch, the first democratically elected president of the Dominican Republic since the end of the brutal, three-decade-long dictatorship of the genocidal Rafael Trujillo. Moving between 1965 and 1976, we follow the revolutionary efforts of Puro and the transformative, feverish adventures of Ángel.

Told through the eyes of a child and a varied cast of friends, family, and neighbors, Reinbou explores the consequences of political and societal upheaval, corruption, and violence in modern Dominican society.

Review Quotes

"Pedro Cabiya's Reinbou, in Jessica Powell's spot-on English translation, is a gem! Let's put it this way, I feel as if I've found a treasure at the end of a reader's rainbow. The weaving together of narratives, the little mysteries and discoveries, the absorbing characters, even more profoundly, the deep dive into our Dominican/ Caribbean cultures, the deft--never heavy duty--critique of our racist relationship with our neighbor country (with the Haitian appearance at the end, bearing a seashell), the bittersweet vision of our present and future histories. May we listen to the oceanic music of Cabiya's voice inside that seashell! Cabiya is our own native-grown Caliban-Ariel-Prospero rolled into one hell of a writer."
--Julia Alvarez, author of The Cemetery of Untold Stories and the international bestseller In the Time of the Butterflies

"The story of the 1965 April Revolution, in the Dominican Republic, has been told many times, but this is the first time we see it through the eyes of a child, focused on what is perhaps its most intense, devastating facet: growing up without a father. Pedro Cabiya's novel demonstrates, like never before, that innocence is the best way to unmask barbarity."
--Mayra Montero, author of Dancing to "Almendra"

"Dense and exciting . . . Cabiya evokes the Dominican Republic's heat and passion with frank and poetic prose and the excitement of a spy thriller. This is teeming with life."
--Publishers Weekly

"Blow-by-blow action sequences, suitcases containing gold bars, and a framing story in which the narrator reminds his distracted audience to pay attention all give the novel a rollicking, cinematic quality. (It was released as a film in 2017.) But the underlying truths about Dominican history that award-winning Cabiya excavates are serious indeed."
--Brendan Driscoll, Booklist

"Cabiya--a Puerto Rican writer who lives in the Dominican Republic--turns a military thriller about the 1965 Dominican civil war into a contemporary fairy tale about a young boy whose innocent goodness has the power to change lives. [...] A sometimes angry, sometimes sardonic, but ultimately optimistic view of humanity."
--Kirkus Reviews

"A blistering exploration of US foreign policy in the second half of the twentieth century. The use of parallel timeframes throughout much of the novel also helps illustrate the close relationship between past and present for Reinbou's characters, and the way that the two can bleed together--sometimes literally."
--Tobias Carroll, Words Without Borders

"[Reinbou is a] sweeping historical novel of the Dominican Republic's civil war . . . featuring a cast of unforgettable characters, rendered in energetic prose . . . Essential for an intimate understanding of the history of the DR and the US intervention."
--JR Ramakrishnan, Electric Literature

"Provocative, irreverent and magisterial. A tale at once epic and satirical in which the defeated, in a Caribbean suffering relentless intervention, are the only heroes."
--Luis Negrón, author of Mundo Cruel

"Cabiya is pure genius . . . funny, provocative, unsettling, all at once."
--Rita Indiana, author of Tentacle

"One of the most respected and prolific writers living in the Caribbean today."
--Karen Van Drie, executive director of Global Literature in Libraries Initiative

"Pedro Cabiya is an incredible intellectual and literary force in the Caribbean letters."
--Mayra Santos-Febres, author of Our Lady of the Night

"In the style of Elmore Leonard or Quentin Tarantino, Cabiya has reclaimed the April War for literature and colored it with his obsessions. Employing a diverse cast of spies, constitutionalists, lunatics, heroes, martyrs, traitors, torturers, sadists, femme fatales, revolutionaries, historians, twins, and pedophiles, he reveals the communicating vessels linking three generations marked by war and the abuse of power."
--Frank Báez, author of The End of the World Came to My Neighborhood

"Instead of focusing on the heroes, founding fathers, political parties and epic exploits of the great machista pageant that is [the Dominican Republic's] national history, Cabiya attends to the women, the children and the popular classes who, with their labor and their love have made it possible for life and the illusion of living to endure, despite state terror and an economy that looms over them every minute of every day. Daily life takes center stage in this story, which Cabiya depicts in minute detail and with great sensitivity, humor and irony born of tremendous affection for the people who make a country... Perhaps what best summarizes Cabiya's perspective is this simple observation noted in the novel: 'Everything is tiny in a shack, except it's inhabitants.'"
--Juan Duchesne Winter, author of Gotcha

About the Author

Born in San Juan in 1971, Pedro Cabiya is a Puerto Rican writer who has lived for the past two decades in the Dominican Republic. He is the author of 13 books and over 100 essays and articles and is one of the most widely read writers in the Hispanic Caribbean. His short-story collection Historias Tremendas (1999) was declared Best Book of the Year by both PEN Club International and the Institute of Puerto Rican Literature. His work has been recognized by the Association of Dominican Writers and Journalists and in 2014 he was awarded the prestigious Caonabo de Oro for excellence in letters.

TRANSLATOR BIO: Jessica Powell has published translations by Pablo Neruda, Sergio Missana, Gabriela Wiener, Silvina Ocampo, among others. Her translation of Wicked Weeds (Mandel Vilar Press) by Pedro Cabiya was named a finalist for the 2017 Best Translated Book Award, made the longlist for the 2017 National Translation Award, and was a 2016 Forward Indies Winner.