In 1962, Carlos Eire was one of the 14, 000 children airlifted out of Cuba -- exiled from his family, his country, and his own childhood by the revolution. The memories of Carlos's life in Havana, cut short when he was just eleven years old, are at the heart of this evocative memoir. Nieve en La Habana is both an exorcism and an ode to a paradise lost. For the Cuba of Carlos's youth - with its lizards and turquoise seas and sun drenched siestas - becomes an island of condemnation once a cigar-smoking guerrilla named Fidel Castro ousts President Batista on January 1, 1959. Suddenly the music in the streets sounds like gunfire. Christmas is made illegal, political dissent leads to imprisonment, and too many of Carlos's friends are leaving Cuba for a place as far awa and unthinkable as the United States. Carlos will end up there too, and fulfill his mother's dreams by becoming a modern American man - even if his soul remains in the country he left behind.