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The Edgar Award-nominated Outcast is a sophisticated, brutally honest, and gripping suspense novel that delves into the highly charged underworlds of modern-day Havana and Miami. Elliot Steil, the son of a Cuban mother and an American-born laborer living on the island before the revolution, is a down-on-his-luck schoolteacher in Havana. Like so many of his fellow Havanans, he has come to accept his rather dull life and for the most part has given up hoping for a better future. But unexpectedly he is offered the opportunity to escape when a man appears on the island, claiming to be an old friend of Elliot's deceased father. The man offers to take Elliot to the United States, but it isn't long before he reveals his ulterior motives and Elliot is left to die in the dangerous waters of the Florida Straits. It is there that Elliot begins to relive the events of his life that have haunted him since his childhood. He is miraculously rescued by a family onboard a makeshift raft and soon after arriving in Miami begins his search for the man who betrayed him. As the search immerses him deeper and deeper into Miami's darker side of crime and corruption, he slowly unravels the mystery of his bicultural past and its links to the man who knew his father many decades earlier. Outcast is at once a brilliantly atmospheric and stunningly written literary achievement and the dazzling American debut of one of Latin America's most accomplished crime writers.
383 pages, Paperback
First published January 1,1999
This edition
- Format
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383 pages, Paperback
- Published
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October 1, 2001 by Goldmann
- ISBN
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9783442449019
- ASIN
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3442449014
- Language
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German
About the author
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José Latour was born in Havana, Cuba, on April 24, 1940. He started reading at a very tender age, progressing from Hans Christian Andersen and the Grimm brothers as a child to Raymond Chandler and Erle Stanley Gardner in his late teens.
By the time the Cuban Revolution came to power, José, who was 19, had become an ardent supporter. He joined the Ministry of Treasury as a junior financial analyst and translator and later moved on to the Cuban Central Bank. From there he transferred to the Ministry of Sugar, ending up in the State Committee of Finance, where from 1977 onwards he swelled the ranks.
Shuffling papers, however, was not challenging enough. In that same year José started writing crime fiction in his spare time. His first three novels (Preludio a la Noche, Medianoche Enemiga and Fauna Noctura), set in pre-revolutionary Havana, were published by Editorial Letras Cubanas in 1982, 1986 and 1989. The fourth (Choque de Leyendas), was launched in 1998, nine years after he first delivered the manuscript to the publisher.
José also joined the Union of Cuban Writers and Artists and the International Association of Crime Writers (IACW) in1988. Two years later he resigned his position as global financial analyst in the Ministry of Finance to become a full-time writer. In 1998 he was elected vice-president for Latin America of the International Association of Crime Writers.
In 1994 José delivered to his publisher The Fool, a novel based on a real-life case of corruption in the ministries of the Interior and the Armed Forces that was uncovered in 1989. This book was considered counterrevolutionary and José was labeled an “enemy of the people.”
Certain that neither The Fool nor the books he wanted to write would get published in Cuba as long as all publishing houses were state-owned, rejecting ideological subservience and adamant about pursuing a career as a novelist, José took a shot at writing in English.
His first novel in that language, Outcast, was published in the U.S., six Western European countries, Brazil and Japan. It got flattering reviews and was nominated for an Edgar. Since, he has penned Havana Best Friends (2002), Havana World Series (2003), Comrades in Miami (2005), The Young Englishman (2009 - as Enrique Clio), and Crime of Fashion (2009).
Seeking creative fiction and fearing dictatorial repression, the author and his family moved to Spain in August 2002 and to Canada in September 2004.
By the time the Cuban Revolution came to power, José, who was 19, had become an ardent supporter. He joined the Ministry of Treasury as a junior financial analyst and translator and later moved on to the Cuban Central Bank. From there he transferred to the Ministry of Sugar, ending up in the State Committee of Finance, where from 1977 onwards he swelled the ranks.
Shuffling papers, however, was not challenging enough. In that same year José started writing crime fiction in his spare time. His first three novels (Preludio a la Noche, Medianoche Enemiga and Fauna Noctura), set in pre-revolutionary Havana, were published by Editorial Letras Cubanas in 1982, 1986 and 1989. The fourth (Choque de Leyendas), was launched in 1998, nine years after he first delivered the manuscript to the publisher.
José also joined the Union of Cuban Writers and Artists and the International Association of Crime Writers (IACW) in1988. Two years later he resigned his position as global financial analyst in the Ministry of Finance to become a full-time writer. In 1998 he was elected vice-president for Latin America of the International Association of Crime Writers.
In 1994 José delivered to his publisher The Fool, a novel based on a real-life case of corruption in the ministries of the Interior and the Armed Forces that was uncovered in 1989. This book was considered counterrevolutionary and José was labeled an “enemy of the people.”
Certain that neither The Fool nor the books he wanted to write would get published in Cuba as long as all publishing houses were state-owned, rejecting ideological subservience and adamant about pursuing a career as a novelist, José took a shot at writing in English.
His first novel in that language, Outcast, was published in the U.S., six Western European countries, Brazil and Japan. It got flattering reviews and was nominated for an Edgar. Since, he has penned Havana Best Friends (2002), Havana World Series (2003), Comrades in Miami (2005), The Young Englishman (2009 - as Enrique Clio), and Crime of Fashion (2009).
Seeking creative fiction and fearing dictatorial repression, the author and his family moved to Spain in August 2002 and to Canada in September 2004.
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