Havana Black

Author’s Note

In 1990, when I started to write the novel Pasado Perfecto, Detective Lieutenant Mario Conde, the protagonist of that book, was born. One night a year and a half later, after the novel had been published, the Count whispered something in my ear that, when I’d thought about it for several days, seemed in the end like a good idea: why don’t we write more novels? And we decided to write three other works that, together with Pasado Perfecto (which took place in the winter of 1989), would make up the four season tetralogy of “The Havana Quartet”. And thus were conceived Vientos de cuaresma (spring), Máscaras in the original, Havana Red in the English edition (summer) and this Paisaje de Otoño or Havana Black, which we finished writing in autumn 1997, a few days before the Count’s and my birthday, for we were indeed born on the same day, if not in the same year.

I want to note just two things via this confession: that I owe to the Count (a literary, never real, character) the good fortune to have meandered through a whole year of his life, following his every hesitation and adventure; and that his stories, as I always point out, are fictitious, although they are quite similar to some accounts of reality.

Finally, I must thank a group of reader-friends, for their patience in absorbing and analysing each of the versions of Havana Black, an exercise without which the book would never have been what it is – for better or for worse. They are, as loyal as ever, Helena Nuñez, Ambrosio Fornet, Álex Fleites, Arturo Arango, Lourdes Gómez, Vivian Lechuga, Beatriz Pérez, Dalia Acosta, Wilfredo Cancio, Gerardo Arreola and José Antonio Michelena. My thanks also to Greco Cid, who presented me with the character of Dr Alfonso Forcade. To Daniel Chavarría, who inspired me with the story of the Manila Galleon. To Steve Wilkinson, who saw the mistakes nobody else had seen. To my publishers, Beatriz Moura and Marco Tropea, who forced me to write with an axe, as Juan Rulfo recommended. And, of course, my gratitude to the person who sustained and tolerated this whole endeavour more than anyone: Lucía López Coll, my wife.