Safe Return Doubtful

translated from the Spanish (Cuba) by Kevin Gerry Dunn – Published 2024

This was my first novel from a Cuban author and a bold, speculative, allegorical piece on communism in the country.
Most of all though, it’s a humorous take on life, with a lot of the jocularity being of a scatological nature. As often when the publisher makes comparisons in the blurb, I didn’t find it at all like ‘Lord of the Flies’, and certainly not ‘The Royal Tenenbaum’s’ – the humour’s well done, but it definitely isn’t of the Wes Anderson type.

Casandra, Calia and Caleb are siblings growing up on an island like Cuba in the Caribbean. They not only face a tyrannical regime from the island’s authoritative dictator, Pop-Pop Mustache, but also each day from their parents. Their father was formerly the dictator’s right-hand man, and though their mother is different in this nature, she still represents a facet of communist culture.

The blend of horror into the satire works very well, especially when that for Madruga, this is a debut novel. She has emerged as an upcoming talent in Latin American literature. There’s also some interesting notes from the translator, Kevin Gerry Dunn, about the Spanish slang used, though it doesn’t take a hugely confident Spanish speaker to understand the regular use of ‘ca-ca’.

My GoodReads score 4 / 5