Conquistador

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This prequel to Fernandez’s successful Caf Con Leche takes the reader back to 1867, on the cold, dark, jagged Cantabrian coast of northern Spain, where young Paco Iglesias dreams of sunny tropical islands. His call to military service thrills him with possibilities. His father, having lost his father and one son in an African campaign, spirits Paco off to the Caribbean. In Cuba Paco’s path to success in sugar cane is strewn with duplicity and treachery from several characters: Uncle Eugenio, the high-living sugar entrepreneur who takes in the young man; Eugenio’s kind and stunningly beautiful wife, Magdalena, who sours the lives of those she loves; the slave Lydia, Magdalena’s mulatta half-sister, who uses Paco; Marta, Paco’s childhood sweetheart, who comes to him blemished. These characters, along with dozens of African slaves, live out their lives on a sugar cane plantation in the asphyxiating atmosphere of slavery. Through this thicket of cane, deceit, and blazing sun, Paco must hack his way.