In 1920 Enrico Caruso arrives in Havana, carrying with him a death-threat he has received from the Sicilian Black Hand. During a performance of Aida at the Teatro Nacional, a bomb explodes and a horrified Caruso, still dressed as Radamès, runs into the street. This is a matter of historical record. What happens next is fiction, imagined by Mayra Montero. As Caruso flees the death-wish of the Black Hand, he is drawn into a passionate affair with a beautiful mulatto-Chinese woman. She engages the help of Santero, a powerful priest in the Afro-Cuban religion, to help him escape death. In this extraordinary and stylish narrative, Mayra Montero has produced an exotic hybrid of ancient tribal myth and opera, fact and fantasy, love story and thriller. The Messenger shows clearly that she is one of the most original voices in Caribbean writing today.
