Lion Island
Cuba's Warrior of Words
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- £8.49
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- £8.49
Publisher Description
In this “beautifully written, thought provoking” (School Library Journal, starred review) novel in verse, award-winning author Margarita Engle tells the story of Antonio Chuffat, a young man of African, Chinese, and Cuban descent who becomes a champion for civil rights.
Asia, Africa, Europe—Antonio Chuffat’s ancestors clashed and blended on the beautiful island of Cuba. Yet for most Cubans in the nineteenth century, life is anything but beautiful. The country is fighting for freedom from Spain. Enslaved Africans and near-enslaved Chinese indentured servants are forced to work long, backbreaking hours in the fields.
So Antonio feels lucky to have found a good job as a messenger, where his richly blended cultural background is an asset. Through his work he meets Wing, a young Chinese fruit seller who barely escaped the anti-Asian riots in San Francisco, and his sister Fan, a talented singer. With injustice all around them, the three friends are determined to prove that violence is not the only way to gain liberty.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Engle concludes what she describes as a "loosely linked group of historical verse novels about the struggle against forced labor in nineteenth-century Cuba," focusing on the formative teenage years of Antonio Chuffat, a real-life messenger boy of mixed Chinese, African, and Cuban descent who became a champion of civil rights. Living in war-torn 1870s Cuba alongside enslaved Africans and indentured Chinese workers shapes Antonio's path to the point where he and his friends twins Wing and Fan, whose family fled anti-Asian riots in Los Angeles begin hiding Chinese fugitives, la the Underground Railroad. Antonio also wishes they could free the enslaved Africans, while Wing longs to join the rebels' fight. Engle introduces readers to a little-discussed era of Cuban history through her concise verse and varied points of view, mainly those of Antonio, Wing, and Fan. This historical snapshot focuses less on the war than on its effects on Cuba's citizens as Engle's characters speak eloquently about gender inequality, racial injustice, and becoming a "warrior of words" through diplomatic and written means. Ages 10 up.
