Women in Translation Book Club: The Weasel and the Whore (online)

Please note this meeting will be online. There will be a mixture of in-person and online meetings throughout the year.

The Women In Translation reading group provides a free, friendly and gentle environment in which opinions are shared and new appreciations can be discovered. A place for curious minds and relaxed conversation hosted by poet and translator Annie Rutherford.

For February 2026 the book will meet online to discuss The Weasel and the Whore by Martha Luisa Hernández Cadenas, translated by Julia Sanches and Jennifer Shyue

Please support the bookshop & the book club by ordering your books through Lighthouse, Use the code LONG-VICTORIOUS-WIT for bookclubbers 10% off.

The book:

The novel that I deem paradigmatic of the generation of Cubans born in the 1990s." Mabel Cuesta, The Cambridge History of Cuban Literature

A grim underground portrait of today's Cuba, where young people struggle to shake off the vestiges of Castroism.

From Monday to Saturday, Mary is a young and talented artist in the artistic, bohemian and fringe circles of Havana. But on Sundays, Mary becomes the sex toy of a high official of the regime. Her condition as a woman and artist, bisexual and alienated from Castroism, inevitably pushes her towards social exclusion, and Mary begins to need a strong reason to remain in Cuba.

Martha Luisa Hernández Cadenas is one of the most important new Cuban writers. With this novel she brings us the story of a rebellious and angry generation fighting to escape the vestiges of Castroism.