I Have Forgotten Your Name

When this novel was first published in Rivera’s native Dominican Republic, readers were shocked. Expecting a light-hearted romp through Caribbean sunlight and music, they were stunned by the multilayered complexity and poetic power of the novel.

A coming-of-age story of two young girls—or is it is two sides of the same girl?—caught between the onslaught of U.S. consumer culture and the evolving Marxist ideologies of the Cuban revolution, the story reflects the loss of any sense of ident…