Dariel Suarez was born in Havana, Cuba and immigrated to the United States with his family in 1997. His debut story collection, A Kind of Solitude, received the 2017 Spokane Prize for Short Fiction and was named a finalist for the International Latino Book Awards. Dariel is Director of Core Programs and Faculty at GrubStreet. His prose has appeared in numerous publications, including the Threepenny Review, Prairie Schooner, the Kenyon Review, and the Caribbean Writer, where he was awarded the First Lady Cecile de Jongh Literary Prize. Dariel earned his MFA in Fiction at Boston University and currently resides in the Boston area with his wife and daughter.
*SILVER MEDALIST for the 2022International Latino Book Awards in Best Popular Fiction – English*
Happily married, backed by a powerful mentor, and with career prospects that would take him abroad, Serguey has more than any young Cuban lawyer could ask for. But when his estranged brother Victor appears with news that their father—famed theater director Felipe Blanco—has been detained for what he suspects are political reasons, Serguey’s privileged life is suddenly shaken.
A return to his childhood home in Havana’s decaying suburbs—a place filled with art, politics, and the remnants of a dissolving family—reconnects Serguey with his troubled past. He learns of an elusive dramaturge’s link to Felipe, a man who could be key to his father’s release. With the help of a social media activist and his wife’s ties with the Catholic Church, Serguey sets out to unlock the mystery of Felipe’s arrest and, in the process, is forced to confront the reasons for the hostility between him and Victor: two violent childhood episodes that scarred them in unforgettable ways. On the verge of imprisonment, Serguey realizes he must make a decision regarding not just his father, but his family and his own future, a decision which, under the harsh shadow of a communist state, he cannot afford to regret.
ADVANCE PRAISE
“The Playwright’s House is a bighearted novel, intricately embedded in the politics and daily life of contemporary Cuba. It is also a family story of love, sibling rivalry, courage, and redemption. Suarez writes with energy, exuberance, and psychological acuity. The straightforward prose adds gravity and earnestness to this remarkable novel.” —Ha Jin, National Book Award winner and author of War Trash
“The Playwright’s House is a thrilling and compassionate story of brotherhood, surveillance culture, the provocative power of theater, and the persistent ways past ghosts can haunt the present. Dariel Suarez animates the singularly complex and contradictory landscape of contemporary Havana with immense precision and insight. This is a stunning and vital novel.”—Laura van den Berg, author of The Third Hotel
Congratulations to Dariel Suarez, author of The Playwright’s House, and M. Soledad Caballero, author of I Was a Bell, for becoming finalists in the International Latino Book Awards for Best […]
Tomorrow is Christmas Eve and for some of us, it ushers in a period of time away from work. Couple that with omicron forcing many of us inside and away […]
Dariel Suarez was born in Havana, Cuba, and immigrated to the United States with his family in 1997. His debut story collection, A Kind of Solitude,received the 2017 Spokane Prize […]
As an undergraduate creative writing student, one piece of feedback kept appearing on the margin of my stories: awkward phrasing. Red markings littered my pages, arrows pointing every which way, […]
Each month, Beyond The Page: A WGBH Book Club features a notable author, who takes part in a live Q&A with a WGBH personality to discuss the intricacies of that month’s novel. […]
Now that spring weather has graced us with its mild temperatures, daylight has been saved, and the vaccine will soon be available to all adults in Massachusetts, there are plenty […]
The University of Maine at Farmington’s celebrated Visiting Writers Series presents fiction writer Dariel Suarez as the popular program’s fifth reader of the season. Suarez will read from his work […]
American’s fascination with the mystery and allure of an island that for years they couldn’t access has led them to mythologize Cuba’s history. Those myths of a land stuck in […]
Havana breathes, swears and cries in Dariel Suárez’s first novel, The Playwright’s House (Red Hen Press, 2021). With a plot that blends family stories and national history, this is a beautifully layered […]
This July, Cuba erupted into its widest protests in a generation. News reports credit food and medicine shortages and summer power outages as the catalysts for the demonstrations which have […]
In his debut novel, Dariel Suarez takes the reader into the heart of Cuba, of Havana, of the people of the island. As a Cuban American, I notice how the […]
Set in Havana, Cuba, The Playwright’s House is an expansive yet intimate novel about a young lawyer Serguey and his family when their father Felipe, a notable theater director, is detained by […]
In Dariel Suarez’s debut novel, The Playwright’s House, to be released in June from Red Hen Press, the realities of living in Havana under a communist state are brought alive through […]
