Teresita by Zenaida Hernandez-Smith

About the book

Historical developments in Cuba and the USA build the backdrop to Ms. Smith's biographical novel TERESITA.

It is 1960 in Cuba. Teresita's 15th birthday is rudely interrupted by Castro's soldiers occupying her sugar cane village. Her deeply religious family does not support Castro's communist revolution, and Teresita's father and uncle join the resistance. Even Teresita becomes a runner for the resistance, carrying supplies, information and sometimes nothing by hope from one underground cell to the next. When her father and uncle are arrested shortly after the Bay of Pigs, her family moves Teresita to America, terrified that she might be next. Exiled from her home, her family and her church, Teresita has to find her way (and God) in a strange country. Her personal journey to God leads her to an expatriate order of nuns, a homeless shelter in New York, the People's Movement, back to Cuba, and into the hands of American government institutions which turns her into an unsuspecting spy.

History and politics invade Teresita's life at every corner. But above all, Teresita is a girl and a woman, a daughter, a granddaughter, a sister, a niece, a cousin, and a friend. This novel is her heartfelt personal story, told with the compassion that so distinguished Teresita's young life.

About the author

Zenaida Hernandez-Smith was born in Matanzas, Cuba, in 1933. She holds a degree in fashion design from the Technology Institute Jose Marti, in Havana, and a degree in journalism from the Professional School of Journalism, Manuel Marquez Sterling in Havana. She worked as an assistant teacher and was a freelance writer for several newspapers, and an art critic for the Women's Journal, both in Havana from 1957 through 1959.

Hernandez-Smith is also the author of two novellas: Youth and Our Times, which, due to their political content, were confiscated by Castro's regime from their publisher. In 1959 she came to the United States with a scholarship but because of the above, her funds were cut and she was never able to go back to Cuba.

Hernandez-Smith sought refuge in the United States, where she held numerous jobs. Like many Cubans in the United States at the time, foremost on her mind was the desire to bring her family to safety. She moved frequently, from Florida to New York to Los Angeles to Boston, trying to carve a life for herself in exile, while helping her family to emigrate.

In 1991, after having worked in fashion design for most of her adult years, Hernandez-Smith returned to writing while attending a graduate writing program at Salem University in Massachusetts. In 1993, her husband, Richard, retired to Florida and she enrolled at Florida Atlantic University in Boca Raton.

Hernandez-Smith is the author of about one hundred poems and a biographical novel, Teresita. She is currently writing the biography of her brother Alfred, focusing on his life as a member of the clandestine movement during the Bay of Pigs. She is also writing her memoir, focusing on her life in exile in the United States.