It’s always a pleasure to share a piece in Crimereads when a new book comes out. Here I talk about writing with a mask (the English language) and how the process worked with Last Seen in Havana.

Authenticity is a big issue in literature. Who wants to read a fake? Nadie. Nobody! Now, when discussing English texts, the topic of authenticity tends to focus on how to express in this language events or dialogues that happen in another. My previous piece, “Writing with an Accent,” was precisely about how I used a foreign language (Spanish) to preserve authenticity without compromising understanding in my novel Death under the Perseids, which takes place in Havana.

But I have also encountered the opposite problem—how to write realistic-sounding scenes from the point of view of an American character, considering that I am not American myself and English isn’t my first language…

Continue reading in the CrimeReads site here