Still Speaking Spanish in My Dreams
Author and journalist Ana Veciana-Suarez reflects on some of her favorite Hispanic writers
By Ana Veciana-Suarez
My husband claims I talk in my sleep. I scream. I whisper. Sometimes I even try to sing.
“What did I say?” I ask, hoping I might connect to the winning Lotto numbers.
“How would I know?” he retorts. “It was in Spanish,”
Spanish is my first language, the one I spoke exclusively until first grade. Though I make my living in English, Spanish remains the Muzak of childhood and dreams. Being bilingual is an advantage like no other. It immerses you in the culture. It strengthens your vocabulary. It opens your mind to the different. But for me, the benefit of knowing two languages has been even more profound.
My first attempts at writing—long before I told my appalled parents this was the career I wanted to pursue—were adolescent scribbles in Spanish. Mainly poetry, rhyme, and free verse and usually inspired by my latest crush. (Unrequited love was a favorite theme, followed by the pain of being unappreciated and misunderstood.)
My choice of language was no surprise. At the time we lived in La Paz, Bolivia, and I was attending an American school where English was spoken in class but Spanish ruled parties and playgrounds. I grew up reading the greats of Spain, and on occasion, members of the Latin American literary pantheon.
The canon of my youth was not Shakespeare and Dickens, not even Poe. In fact, I would not read some of those heavyweights until I was an adult, curious about what I had missed during my peripatetic education. Instead, I was immersed in Cervantes, Calderón de la Barca, and the swoon-worthy Becquer. I also had a healthy helping of Latin American greats. The syntax and subject of their works inform my writing to this day, but the impact of my early reading is perhaps nowhere more noticeable than in my decision to write about the most famous female character in all of Spanish-language literature. My new historical novel Dulcinea reimagines the woman who might have inspired Miguel de Cervantes to write Don Quixote. What better way to pay homage to the man considered the father of the modern novel?
My first attempts at writing—long before I told my appalled parents this was the career I wanted to pursue—were adolescent scribbles in Spanish.
I continue to read avidly, with the same passion that, as a kid, drove me to hide a book (and a flashlight) under my bed covers. Now most of my reading, both for work and for pleasure, is in English, but I try to mix it up whenever I can. Sira by the Spanish writer, Maria Dueñas, whom I met at the Miami Book Fair, tops my current nightstand pile.
During Hispanic Heritage Month, I’m often asked for book recommendations which I gladly offer with a disclaimer that my list is, by no means, comprehensive. My suggestions are limited by personal experience and geographical interest. I’m partial to the new generation of Miami Latino writers whose works deal with identity and belonging. Anything by Patricia Engel and Ana Menéndez immediately come to mind. Both have new books out—Engel’s short-story collection The Faraway World and Menéndez’s novel The Apartment. Then there are the amazing debuts by Gabriela García (Of Women and Salt) and Jonathan Escoffery (If I Survive You) who is of Jamaican descent but writes about the cultural mosaic of Miami with heartbreaking grace. I’ve also suggested Jennine Capó Crucet, whose second book, Make Your Home Among Strangers, portrays what happens when you leave home and family behind to forge a so-called better life. A more recent arrival to Miami, Dainerys Machado Vento, was named one of the world’s best young Spanish-language writers by the literary magazine Granta.
For historical fiction, try any page-turning novel by Armando Lucas Correa, who is translated from Spanish into dozens of languages, and those of Chantel Acevedo and Chanel Cleeton, both of whom write in English but mine the muddled depths of their parents’ Cuban heritage. For thrills and chills, the novelist and comic book writer Alex Segura does it better than anyone. Miami-based Puerto Rican novelist Anjanette Delgado edited a must-have collection that warms my heart, Home in Florida: Latinx Writers and the Literature of Uprootedness. And in non-fiction, you’ll laugh aloud (and with envy) at Alisha Fernandez Miranda’s debut, My What If Year and tear up over Jaquira Díaz’s Ordinary Girls, both memoirs.
There also are older writers of my generation who work in English but whose writing roots are planted in fertile Latino loam. Cristina García recently penned Vanishing Maps, a sequel to her pioneering debut Dreaming in Cuban. And the oeuvre of the late Oscar Hijuelos (The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love) brings to life tropical Cuban culture in the frigid northeast. The journalist/novelist/translator Achy Obejas’s story collection has, hands down, the title that best describes growing up in a Cuban family: We Came All the Way from Cuba So You Could Dress Like This? For poetry, I recommend any book by the fabulous Richard Blanco, who made us proud when he read at Barack Obama’s second inauguration. Legna Rodríguez Iglesias, who writes in Spanish, is a young, promising poet, playwright, and short story writer.
As an abuela of nine (and counting), I’ve read many Latino writers for children, most with a connection to the Cuban experience. Among my favorite authors whose books I’ve bought for my grandkids: Meg Medina, Margarita Engle, Christina Díaz Gonzalez, Ruth Behar, and Pablo Cartaya. Acevedo also writes middle grade novels.
These recommendations are a start, but don’t limit your forays into Latino literature to one dedicated month or one national group. That would be like enjoying beer only during Octoberfest. Rather, read broadly, seek out translations, discover new ways of expression. Experiment. Be curious.
At first a strange culture on the page may prove disorienting. A writer of a different background may challenge your long-held beliefs. Good. You’re leaving your comfort zone. You may not end up speaking another language in your sleep, but I guarantee the horizon of your dreams will widen beyond the easy and the familiar.
Ana Veciana-Suarez is a syndicated columnist for Tribune Content Agency and the author of Dulcinea, The Chin Kiss King, Flight to Freedom, and Birthday Parties in Heaven. Her commentary has appeared in O, The Oprah Magazine, Woman's Day, the Washington Post Magazine, Parenting, Reader's Digest, Latina, and various newspapers and websites. It also has been included in several anthologies, garnering prizes from the Society of Professional Journalists, the American Society of Feature and Sunday Editors, Women in Communications, and the Florida Society of Newspaper Editors. She was awarded the 2019 Cintas Fellowship for Creative Writing. She lives in Miami.