Hurricane Dancers

Hurricane Dancers by Margarita Engle

Quebrado didn’t use to be called Quebrado, not when he was small and whole. The child of a Spanish father (a defector from the armies of the conquistadores) and a Taíno mother, he was renamed Quebrado, “broken one,” only upon being captured by Bernardino de Talavera. Talavera is a historical figure, a Spanish farmer-turned-pirate who also happened to capture the brutal conquistador Alonso de Ojeda. As Hurricane Dancers opens, Quebrado, Talavera, and Ojeda find themselves caught in a strengthening hurricane, forcing each to reckon with the choices and chances that brought them to this moment. When the ship crashes on the shores of Cuba, Ojeda and Talavera find themselves weak, alone, and—for once—vulnerable, as Quebrado escapes them and make his way to the caves where local Ciboney Indians are conducting ritual hurricane ceremonies. In the caves he meets Caucubú and Naridó, legendary lovers drawn from centuries of Cuban literature, and who, in this story, become part of his journey of not only evading the Spanish captors but also of warning other local Indian communities of their violence and cruelty. Written in evocative poetry with lots of white space on the page, this entrancing novel of historical fiction invites reluctant and eager readers alike to enter into the suppressed history of Cuba, the Indians who lived there long before Spanish conquistadores arrived, and how the meeting of these two cultures looked from the perspective of the Cuban Indians. Subjects this book includes that some readers may be sensitive to (but which others may be thrilled to find sensitively discussed in their literature: Slavery, separation of parents and children.

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