An Evening with Elena Sheppard

***Please note: This event will take place at the Books & Books in Coral Gables at 265 Aragon Ave. Tickets are FREE and books will be available for purchase at the event. Can't make the event?

“A moving, lyrical meditation on exile, family, and unimaginable loss. With the dedication of a historian and the voice of a poet, Sheppard traces the story of a family that—in its historical sweep—becomes the story of a gorgeous, troubled and ever-resilient Cuba. A testament to the power of memory and the ties that bind us to nation and tribe.”—Ana Menéndez, author of The Apartment

“Entering The Eternal Forest is like diving into a magic ocean dominated by women named after flowers. Elena Sheppard masterfully covers the history of Cuba from the beginning of the 20th century through a family, divided by exile, loss and reunion. A tribute to abuelas. A read that will stay with you forever.”—Armando Lucas Correa, author of The German Girl and former editor of People En Español

On Sheppard’s grandfather’s gravestone is a line from Cuban poet José Martí’s work Versos Sencillos, “A mí denme el bosque eterno” or “Give me the eternal forest.” Sheppard writes, “That forest gives me goose bumps any time I think of it: that forest of memory, that forest of the past, that forest of the mind and what gets lost in the dark.” It was her grandparent’s memories of Cuba—especially her grandmother Rosita’s—that became the foundation of Sheppard’s childhood. They remembered Cifuentes, Cuba as an Eden. Then Fidel Castro seized power in 1959 and Sheppard’s grandfather, Gustavo, was placed on a list of political undesirables. By the end of 1960, the couple and their two daughters had fled to Florida, with nothing more than five dollars, and a suitcase each. They were certain they would return to Cifuentes within a few months, after Castro’s reign had run its course. But they never went back, and a piece of each of their identities became frozen in that moment.

In 1987, Sheppard was the first in Gustavo and Rosita’s family to be born in the United States, but through her grandmother’s memories, she was always traveling back and forth in time—to before in Cuba and after in the U.S. Sheppard takes us inside these stories, and as we traverse the narrow Florida Straits that separate Miami and Havana, we also weave between past and present, to discover family secrets that are on the brink of being lost to memory.

Elena Sheppard is a graduate of Columbia University’s MFA, and her work has appeared in The New York Times, The Cut, The New Yorker, Vogue, The Guardian, The Los Angeles Review of Books, and W, as well as on NBC and MSNBC. She has been a writer-in residence at the Constance Saltonstall Foundation for the Arts, and taught creative nonfiction and journalism in Columbia’s High School Summer Program. She lives in New York with her husband and children.

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