num_pages: 224
description: From Marcial Gala the author of the award-winning The Black Cathedral Call Me Cassandra is a darkly magical tale of a haunted young dreamer born in the wrong body and time who believes himself to be a doomed prophetess from ancient Greek mythologyTen-year-old Rauli lives in a world that is often hostile. His older brother is violent; his philandering father doesnt understand him; his intelligence and sensitivity do not endear him to the other children at school. He loves to read especially Greek myths but in Cuba in the 1970s novels and gods can be dangerous. Despite the signs that warn Rauli to repress and fear what he is he knows three things to be true: First that he was born in the wrong body. Second that he will die aged eighteen as a soldier in the Cuban intervention in Angola. And third that he is the reincarnation of the Trojan princess Cassandra.Moving between Raulis childhood and adolescence between the Angolan battlefield the Cuban city of Cienfuegos and the shores of ancient Troy Marcial Galas Call Me Cassandra tells of the search for identity amid the collapse of Cubas utopian dreams. Burdened with knowledge of tragedies yet to come Rauli nonetheless strives to know himself. Lyrical and gritty heartbreaking and luminous Raulis is the story of the inexorable pull of destiny.
language: English
title: Call Me Cassandra
publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux