Eire's Ashes

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Sometimes you have to die to be reborn. Carlos Eire’s first lesson when adjusting to life in America was to bury his past. His new book Learning to Diein Miami chronicles his coming of age in the '60s, when he was a Cuban immigrant in South Florida far from Havana, his family, and friends. Eire’s 2003 National Book Award-winning memoir Waiting for Snow in Havana narrated his tale of growing up in Cuba during the early Castro years and ended as the author left the island with his brother on a plane. His new tome picks up as the author arrives at the Miami airport with the fear that he would never see his parents again. In fact, Eire, who was among the 14,000 kids ferried away from their homeland as part of Operation Peter Pan, didn’t reunite with his mother until many years later. He never saw his father again. Thursday at 8 p.m., the Yale professor reads excerpts from Learning to Die in Miami at Books & Books, recounting his difficulties learning English, attending American schools, and being shuffled between foster homes.
Thu., Dec. 9, 8 p.m., 2010