If you click on the following link, you will hear a composition of mine, ALAS, sung by Alia McKee.

CUBA, ADIOS

First prize winner as Best Biography at the International Latino Book Awards

Defining Freedom in Exile

Between 1960 and 1962 more than 14,000 Cuban children escaped Fidel Castro’s communist regime as part of an airlift known as “Operación Pedro Pan.” Lorenzo Pablo Martínez was one of these children. In “CUBA, ADIÓS: a young man’s journey to freedom,” Martínez vividly recounts his participation in a program that bridged two different cultures and achieved great political significance over the years.

At eighteen, he forfeits a music scholarship to Prague to accept an unknown future of exile in America without knowing the language, money to pursue an education, or family to help. Plagued by guilt around his sexual identity and having to care for a younger brother, Martínez forges ahead to become the composer of his future. CUBA, ADIÓS is a poignant, thoughtful account of one boy’s survival and self-acceptance, written with unflinching honesty and a wry humor.

“…a gripping memoir that will keep the reader engaged from beginning to end.”–Susan Bernhardt, author of A Kay Driscoll Series.

“…impressive writing. Martínez knows how to tell a story in an appealing way.”–Ray Moseley, author of two biographies, Mussolini’s Shadow and The Last a days of Mussolini, and a memoir, Foreign Affairs.