Carlos Lechuga presents his most insolent novel in Madrid
14ymedio, Yunior García Aguilera, Madrid, 9 June 2025 — Madrid/ Carlos Lechuga presented Sórdida Tropical this Saturday at Arenales, the Madrid bookstore that has become something of a spiritual embassy for the Cuban creative exile. Published by Hypermedia, ‘Sórdida Tropical’ is not exactly his latest novel, but rather his first—one he wrote almost a decade ago and which slept the sleep of innocent beasts until the world, or at least a part of it, was once again ready to read it.
Because Sórdida Tropical, as Ulises Padrón Suárez pointed out in the presentation, is incorrect to the core. Tropical, yes. Sordid, of course. And completely cancelable if it were read by a neo-Puritan reading committee.
The novel drags us through a Havana that reeks of sweat, decadence, stale ideology, and the New Man.
Narrated in the first person—because Lechuga doesn’t know how or want to do it any other way—the novel sweeps us through a Havana that reeks of sweat, decadence, stale ideology, and the New Man. Its protagonist, a nameless, unfiltered man, is misogynistic, fetishistic, racist, sexually predatory, and culturally opportunistic. He seeks excitement in the armpits of the tropics while the city, and an entire country, burns around him.
Lechuga, born in Havana in 1983, is best known for his films: Melaza (2012), Santa y Andrés (2016, censored by the regime), and Vicenta B (2022), his most intimate work. But he has also demonstrated a keen eye with his pen. If not, just ask those who read ’En brazos de la mujer casada’ (2000) or his most recent essay-novel, ’Esta es tu casa, Fidel’ (2024), where he already warned that his goal was to speak clearly, without unnecessary nuances.
Unlike many Cuban intellectuals who graduate from Literature with a torrent of readings, Lechuga is a child of cinema; he learned to watch more than to read. He studied at the Faculty of Audiovisual Communication (Famca) and the International School of Film and Television of San Antonio de los Baños. Perhaps that is why his prose is visual, sharp, without makeup or academic posturing.
“This book must be kept for ten years”
The story behind Sórdida Tropical is a good enough story for another novel. The manuscript was initially rejected by a Spanish publisher who, somewhat panicking, told him: “This book needs to be kept for ten years.” Perhaps she feared that, in a world where even Sleeping Beauty has been criticized for a stolen kiss, someone might mistake the author for his character.
But Lechuga isn’t his nameless protagonist. He doesn’t walk the streets ignoring what he’s stepping on, nor has he needed any ’levers’ to create. More than once, he’s taken the plunge and suffered the corresponding chill of an artist who dares to get wet in an authoritarian context.
The novel oozes references: Guillermo Rosales’s Boarding Home, the dirty fatalism of Pedro Juan Gutiérrez, the tropical existentialism of Desnoes. Lechuga, however, doesn’t seek to imitate anyone. His strength lies in the brazenness with which he writes, in the way he “strips” the sentences and leaves the reader like the characters: vulnerable and “bare-bones.” It’s a kind of literary OnlyFans, but with more neurosis than simple raw meat.
Lechuga has said that he wrote the novel in the midst of the crisis
At one point, Sórdida Tropical was called Nebula, and also Burn Havana, Burn It All. And not for pure effect: this novel is an emotional, cultural, and aesthetic burning. A release without anesthesia that brings out the rot that many prefer to ignore.
Lechuga has said he wrote it in the midst of a crisis: exiled from the cinema, sleeping on his mother’s couch, and with a fierce need to say everything. That is why the book burns. That is why he doesn’t ask permission or offer explanations.
Some might say there’s nothing new under the sun, but the context in which this novel is published elevates the risk. This book of protest—or proteXXXta, as Lechuga calls it—was not born in a time when the brashness of the intruder is celebrated, but in one where the market assumes new moral rules. And its courage doesn’t lie in defending horror; on the contrary, it lies in not sweeping it under the rug.
Welcome, Sórdida Tropical. A book to be read in one gulp, with an arched eyebrow and a fan in the background. It’s not meant to decorate your bookshelf: it’s meant to be handled, discussed, and perhaps—if you’re not afraid of fire—read again.
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