More than 30 years ago, Christina Garcia exploded onto the American literary scene with her debut novel, Dreaming in Cuban.

Publicly, she was lauded as the next big thing. Privately, she was a new

mom trying to get her bearings. We talk about that period, the deep historical dives that inform

her works of fiction, including her newest novel, Vanishing Maps, and Christina's insights on the

importance of pursuing creative work, even when nothing is guaranteed.

Music creative work, even when nothing is guaranteed. Christina, thank you so much for doing this.

Oh, so much pleasure.

I remember reading, dreaming in Cuban,

and there were lots of parts of it that were very resonant for me as a Cuban, but one of the

things I remember was being like, oh, this is a Cuban from the New York, New Jersey, Tri-State area,

and that is not where the Cuban narrative is often centered. I'm curious for you, having been

born in Cuba, coming to the United States when you're two years old, I often hear you talk about

sort of being in Queens and moving to Brooklyn Heights. What was that internal migration that was happening?

And what was it that was motivating those moves?

We were really the outliers of the extended Garcia clan.

Everyone, even if they tried New York or tried Texas, all ended up in Miami. And so we were

just this isolated family. I grew up pretty much not knowing any other Cubans except some cousins

in Staten Island. So I had, it was a very self-referential life. I felt like it was very bifurcated. I'd go in the door through the

basement door of our address at 37 and a half, Remsen Street in Brooklyn Heights, and it was

1953 Havana. And I'd go out the door, and it was 70s, Go-Go-70s, Brooklyn, New York City, high school in Manhattan,

and it was just no reconciling the two.

And so I kind of learned every day to cross that border and knew that the rules were different, the expectations were different,

...