The narrator of Letters to My Mother is a young Afro-Cuban girl who, upon the death of her mother, must live with her aunt and cousins. Dependent on them and their good will, she finds their taunts about how dark her skin is and their attacks on her behavior, including her choice not to straighten her hair, deeply wounding. To keep her mother alive somehow, and to remember that she was once deeply loved, she writes letters telling Mamita what she is suffering and feeling.

Over the course of this powerful and moving novel, the heroine grows up. Her inner strength helps her to overcome her pain and the racism of at least some of the people around her. And her position in the family changes as she learns to accept herself and others.

Teresa Cardenas is Cuba's best-known author for young people and is a world-famous storyteller and dancer. She has won the Casa de las Americas prize for her novel Perro Viejo / Old Dog and Cuba's National Prize in Literary Criticism for Cartas al cielo (published as Letters to My Mother / Cartas a mi mama in North America). She lives in Havana with her two children.

Teresa Cardenas' profile page

David Unger received Guatemala’s 2014 Miguel Angel Asturias National Prize in Literature for lifetime achievement, though he writes exclusively in English and lives in the US. The Mastermind (Akashic Books, 2016), his latest novel, has been translated into Spanish, Arabic and Italian. In 2011 he published The Price of Escape (Akashic Books) and Para Mi, Eres Divina (Random House Mondadori, Mexico). Other books include Ni chicha, ni limonada (F y G Editores, 2009) and Life in the Damn Tropics (Wisconsin University Press, 2004). His short stories and essays have appeared in Delta de las arenas: cuentos árabes, cuentos judíos (Literal Publishers, 2013), Puertos Abiertos (FCE, 2011), Guernica Magazine (February 2016, April 2011, November 2007 and August 2006) and Playboy Mexico (October 2005). He has translated 14 titles including Popol Vuh, Guatemala’s pre-Columbian creation myth, and the work of Rigoberta Menchú (Guatemala), Silvia Molina (Mexico), Nicanor Parra (Chile), Teresa Cárdenas (Cuba) and Mario Benedetti (Uruguay), among others.

David Unger's profile page

• Commended, Americas Award Commended List
• Commended, Bank Street College Children's Library Best Children's Books of the Year

...a penetrating look at life in a different part of the Americas.

Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books

...a sparsely written, but powerful, book that will provide young adult readers with much to think about in terms of life and love and the power of friendship and self-respect. Highly recommended.

Resource Links

...short, but poignant...

Library Media Connection

Unger's simple, sometimes poetic translation of the book, which was originally published in Cuba, is always true to the child's inner voice.

Booklist

This sheaf of small observations...is itself a 'broken mirror,' reflecting the toil and flashing transcendence of the human experience.

Publishers Weekly

...this poignant story of racism and hope holds valuable lessons for all readers. An essential read for young and old.

Criticas Magazine

...a stark portrait of the difficult life of a young African-Cuban girl. The main character's voice is authentic, and the other characters, sketched with spare lines, are believable and sympathetic.

School Library Journal