Carlos Eire, Author of Learning to Die in Miami: Confessions of a Refugee Boy, to Speak at Darien Library (A One Book, One Community Event)

On Thursday, April 7 at 7 p.m., Darien Library will welcome back author Carlos Eire for a special One Book, One Community* Meet the Author event. His talk at the Library, co-sponsored by the Yale Club of Lower Fairfield County, will focus on his recent book, Learning to Die in Miami: Confessions of a Refugee Boy.

Carlos Eire is a voice for the generation of Cuban children who fled their homeland during Operation Peter Pan in the early 1960s. His first memoir, Waiting for Snow in Havana, won the National Book Award for Nonfiction 2003. Now, in Learning to Die in Miami: Confessions of a Refugee Boy Carlos Eire continues telling his story, from the moment he first set foot in Miami at the age of eleven.

The year was 1962 and he and his older brother, Tony, had fled along with 14,000 other children from “Castrolandia.” They were not only refugees, but also orphans—both of Carlos’s parents were stuck behind in Cuba. It would take years for their mother to make her way into the United States, but Carlos would never see his father again. During those first years, Carlos learns to adjust to life in America as he spends nearly a year in a Dickensian foster home, struggles to learn English and blend into American schools, and confronts the age-old immigrant’s plight—he is surrounded by the bounty of this rich land yet unable to partake. Carlos must learn to balance the divide between his past and present lives and find his way in this strange new world of gas stations, vending machines, and sprinkler systems.

Flashing back and forth between past and future, we watch as Carlos balances the divide between his past and present homes and finds his way in this strange new world, one that seems to hold the exhilarating  promise of infinite possibilities, and one that he will eventually claim as his own. The abundance that America has to offer is cause for childish excitement as Carlos begins to assimilate into his new home. He sheds the vestiges of his old life almost immediately, adopting the Anglicized version of his first name—Charles—and participating in a much more relaxed form of Catholicism. Cuba becomes a remote and vague idea in the back of his head, something he used to know well, but now it “had ceased to be part of the world.” But as Carlos comes to grips with his strange surroundings, he must also struggle with everyday issues of growing up. His constant movement between foster homes and the eventual realization that his parents are far away in Cuba brings on the awareness that his life has irrevocably changed.

“A mix of insightful observation, humor, and heartfelt emotion. . . . Easily one of the more impressive memoirs on the thorny issue of immigration.” — Publishers Weekly (starred review)

“Eire is a tremendously likable narrator, honest about the limitations of memory, always wearing his heart on his sleeve. At times he rushes to transcendence. But those who remember the exuberant kid from ‘Waiting for Snow in Havana’ — launching a lizard into outer space on the back of a firecracker, chasing after beautiful blue clouds of DDT — will be moved by the man he becomes.” – Ligaya Mishan, The New York Times Book Review

“Eire is gifted with what might be called lyric precision—a knack for grasping the life of a moment through its sensuous particulars . . . .Vigorously written and alive.” — The Boston Globe

Born in Havana in 1950, Carlos Eire left his homeland in 1962. After living in a series of foster homes in Florida and Illinois, he was reunited with his mother in Chicago in 1965. His father, who died in 1976, never left Cuba. After earning his Ph.D. at Yale University in 1979, Carlos Eire taught at St. John’s University in Minnesota for two years and at the University of Virginia for fifteen. He is now the T. Lawrason Riggs Professor of History and Religious Studies at Yale University. He lives in Guilford, Connecticut, with his wife, Jane, and their three children.

A reception and book signing will follow the author presentation. Books will be available for purchase. Seating is limited and on a first-come, first-served basis.

*One Book, One Community encourages everyone in town to read the same book and then come together to explore its themes.

The selected book for the town-wide read is “Countdown” by Deborah Wiles. The critically-acclaimed historical novel reads like the memoir of an 11-year-old girl in October of 1962 during the Cuban Missile Crisis. 

Darien Library is located at 1441 Post Road, Darien, Conn.

For more information, visit darienlibrary.org or call 203-655-1234.

Additional parking for evening and weekend Library programs on Thorndal Circle (behind Nielsen’s).