ABSTRACT
In the many novels of the Cuban writer Eduardo Manet, the dynamic force, agent of change, inevitably comes from outside. For Manet and others who write in French, describing them as French writers or even as hyphenates, such as Cuban-French, may place too much emphasis on defining them by their chosen language at the expense of who they are and what they bring to the language. France is going through an identity crisis, says Manet. So it appeals to their vanity and sense of national glory that foreigners should come and write in French. While most of his fiction concerns Cuba, writing in his adopted tongue establishes a distance that is different from physical exile, since his primary audience is even further removed than he is from the place and the culture. The privileged glimpse into the African depths of Cuban society, which recurs later in the trilogy, had lasting effect on Manet's own sensitivity for New World cultures.
