What Writers are Reading: Orlando Luis Pardo Lazo

Photo: via Sampsonia Way.

Born in Havana, Cuba in 1971, Orlando Luis Pardo Lazo is now earning his doctorate in comparative literature at Washington University in Saint Louis, Missouri. He blogs at Lunes de Post-Revolución and collaborates with Diario de Cuba, Ciber Cuba, PanAm Post, and other digital media. Since 2013, he published four short-story collections in Cuba. Beginning in 2013, he’s published his work in a variety of forms, including the digital photo-book Abandoned Havana, the anthology Cuba in Splinters, and the compilations of his fictionalized chronicles del Clarín Escuchad El Silencio and Espantado de todo me refugio en Trump. 

What are you reading right now?

The Night Won’t Last Forever: Risks and Hopes for Cuba by Oswaldo Payá. (La Noche no Será Eterna: Peligros y Esperanzas Para Cuba)

What five books would you recommend for folks to read? 

1) Life on the Hyphen: The Cuban-American Way by Gustavo Pérez Firmat.

2) Everyone Leaves by Wendy Guerra.

3) Informe contra mí mismo/Report against myself  by Eliseo Alberto.

4) Yocandra in the Paradise of Nada: A Novel of Cuba by Zoé Valdés.

5) Impossible Returns: Narratives of the Cuban Diaspora by Iraida López.

What stories made you want to become a writer?

The novels of Milan Kundera.

What are your reading habits like? When do you read?

After midnight.

How does what you read inform your writing projects?

Directly. I read to write. To read is a way of writing for me.

Is there anything else you want to share about your reading?

I read much less than I wish to read.