Miguel Barnet's A True Story is based on the life of Julian Mesa, a Cuban living in New York City. The novel spans the years between the 1930s to the 1980s as the protagonist moves from Cuba to the US. Throughout the novel Julian, a building supervisor in the Chelsea neighborhood of Manhattan, recounts his life beginning with his early childhood years in the Cuban countryside and ending on the brink of tears as he dreams about an island which he dreams of seeing again. His account tells of the brutal work of the Cuban peasant in the sugarcane fields as well as the oppressive unemployment...