RaveThe Toronto Star (CA)The Man Who Loved Dogs is a page-turner. Part cloak-and-dagger, part Soviet history, part meditation on truth and fear, it chronicles both the historical record and the physical and psychological injuries wrought by the Stalinism of old and its more contemporary Cuban variant ... Cuba comes off as a dark and decrepit country, but Padura is no knee-jerk anti-Communist. He grapples honestly with the profound despair of his generation, many of whom willingly sacrificed their creativity, their labour, some their very lives, to what now seems a grand delusion ... Translator Anna Kushner captures Padura’s fluid prose, but read the original if you can. It’s even better.
