Telex from Cuba

The debut novel by New York Times bestselling author Rachel Kushner, called "shimmering" (The New Yorker), "multilayered & absorbing" (The New York Times Book Review), & "gorgeously written" (Kirkus Reviews).

Young Everly Lederer & K.C. Stites come of age in Oriente Province, where the Americans tend their own fiefdom—three hundred thousand acres of United Fruit Company sugarcane that surround their gated enclave. If the rural tropics are a child's dreamworld, Everly & K.C. nevertheless have keen eyes for the indulgences & betrayals of the grown-ups around them—the mordant drinking & illicit loves, the race hierarchies & violence.

In Havana, a thousand kilometers and a world away from the American colony, a cabaret dancer meets a French agitator named Christian de La Mazière, whose seductive demeanor can't mask his shameful past. Together they become enmeshed in the brewing political underground. When Fidel & Raúl Castro lead a revolt from the mountains above the cane plantation, torching the sugar & kidnapping a boat full of "yanqui" revelers, K.C. & Everly begin to discover the brutality that keeps the colony humming. Though their parents remain blissfully untouched by the forces of history, the children hear the whispers of what is to come.

Kushner's first novel is a tour de force, haunting & compelling, with the urgency of a telex from a forgotten time & place.

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Rachel Kushner an internationally bestselling author whose work has been translated into 27 languages. She has been nominated for the Booker Prize twice, longlisted for The Mars Room in 2018 & shortlisted for Creation Lake in 2024. She is also the author of The Hard Crowd, her acclaimed essay collection, & the internationally bestselling novels The Flamethrowers and Telex from Cuba.