Armando is a veteran of World War II, where
he took part in the Normandy invasion and
occupation of Germany.
This love novel, has
its setting in Cuba in the second half of
the seventeenth century, during the English
occupation of Havana. An English sea captain
falls in love with a beautiful young
Mandingo, recently freed from slavery,
during a trip to Cuba to find her father,
still in slavery. It is a work of historical
fiction that highlights the customs and
manners of the time.
Interracial
relationships are taboo in the Island, but
love prevails culminating in the first
official interracial marriage in Cuba: A
white European and a black African
symbolically unite three continents: Africa,
Europe and America.
Over the next few
years the sea captain begins to dictate to
his wife topics for a future book, really a
mechanism used by the author of the novel to
expose his philosophy and social ideas.
The circumnavigation
of Cuba, the search for the missing father,
attacks by pirates, conspiracies against
Drake, the intrepid sea captain, and many
other adventures, make delicious every page
of this book.
