The Most Recent Work by Abilio Estévez: "How I Met the Tree Planter"

January 8, 2023

The latest publication by Cuban writer Abilio Estévez, How I Met the Tree Planter, brings together a series of stories that, although written outside of Cuba, recall the Island as a "lost paradise," defined as such by the writer himself.

Published last November by Editorial Tusquets, the book recreates characters who invent a parallel reality to endure the pettiness of everyday life, who in the midst of an incomprehensible disaster propose to resist".

"I believe it is a book about wandering, about losing your place, I mean, about forcing yourself to lose your place, trying to have it through the fabrication of memory, a world of fiction. It is a book about restoring a place through the act of having to narrate it, searching in literary keys," Estévez explained in a recent interview with the Spanish media outlet La Razón.

According to critic Juan Herranz, How I Met the Tree Planter is one of the three best publications by the writer, along with Thine Is the Kingdom and Archipelagos.

Regarding the meaning of the stories, Herranz explained from his literature-specialized blog: "No stateless person is as much so as an islander deep within continental land. Because there are no more paradises than those certainly lost, but islands are the last possible paradises in merely geographic terms. Thus is understood a powerful telluric appeal toward people like Abilio".

In this regard, it is worth recalling that Abilio Estévez has lived in Spain for 21 years.

The writer, who turns 69 this January 7th, also includes in his work a dozen theatrical works, among which stand out The True Guilt of Juan Clemente Zenea and Santa Cecilia; as well as two short story collections, the poetry book Manual of Temptations and the novels The Distant Palaces, Secret Inventory of Havana, The Year of Calypso, The Russian Dancer of Monte Carlo and The Sleeping Navigator.