Hard Water

Mylene Fernández Pintado is the author of six books of short stories and two novels. Her novel A Corner of the World was published in English translation by City Lights Books, in Italian translation by Marcos y Marcos, and in the original Spanish by La Moderna in Spain. “Hard Water,” in this issue, is part of the story collection Agua dura (Ediciones Unión, Havana, 2017). She has twice won Cuba’s Premio de la Crítica, once for a novel and once for a story collection. (updated 10/2023)

Dick Cluster is the author of The History of Havana (OR Books, 2018), written with Rafael Hernández, and The Alex Glauberman Series of crime novels. For City Lights Books, he has translated Mylene Fernández Pintado’s A Corner of the World (2011), as well as books by Gabriela Alemán (Ecuador), Pedro de Jesús (Cuba), and Antonio Jose Ponte (Cuba). His translation of Mexican poet Paula Abramo’s Fiat Lux was published by FlowerSong Press in 2022. (updated 10/2023)