First piece of fiction I've personally seen that covered the Cuban involvement in Angola. In anecdotes, older people usually just describe it as "bad. Very bad." I don't know if I learned anything through this book, but I was hooked. 

I thought it was interesting the purposeful ways white and mixed-race/mulato, talked about Blackness in this book, as something that separated them with Angolans, different 'internal' sides of them (my Black side will come out through violence, etc.), something to distance from, etc. I thought having the Russian-Ukranian character be almost-the-most-normal white person about Black people/Blackness was both very funny and true. 

I was skeptical of Cassandra/Raulito in the beginning, and have seen some protagonists who are written to be semi-prophetic leave the reader with a sense of mystery whether it is all true or not, even at the end. I thought it was wonderful and distinct to leave us with no question that Cassandra was right all along, and really was her. She never seemed to try to dodge her end-fate (ignominious death), even with all the outs offered by even the unsympathetic characters, even before she landed in Angola, which makes me wonder if it is a kind of suicide. 

 

I'm curious what led the author to conceive of this book, and glad that he did. One of the most interesting internal worlds I've ever inhabited. Hope to read more of his soon!