Spared Angola: Memories from a Cuban-American Childhood is a powerful and original first collection of autobiographical stores, essays and poems. Hoping to spare their only child the fate of thousands of young Cubans conscripted to fight in the revolution in Angola, Suarez's parents left Cuba, unaware of the sentence destiny would impose instead. Suarez's compelling pieces evoke the agony and frustration borne of growing up in terminal exile and cultural limbo. But, from anguish and turmoil, the artist has wrought inspiration and crafted one of the most eloquent and commanding voices of contemporary American literature.