Everyone Leaves: A Novel

“A classic story . . . delivers real news from Cuba in a lyrical way.”–NPR

Available for a new generation, Wendy Guerra’s intoxicating and heartrending classic—a portrait of economically depressed post-revolutionary Cuba in the late 1970s, written as the diary of a young girl left behind by her parents and the state, who becomes caught in an acrimonious custody battle.

It is 1978, and Nieve finds herself caught between the tides of her parents' turbulent relationship and a country in turmoil. To try to control her situation, she begins to record the intimate and harsh details of her life in her diary. Becoming her sole means of expression, the diary is her only constant and her only friend. From being torn from her mother, her mother’s free-spirited and loving boyfriend, and her childhood city of Cienfuegos, to living with her abusive father, an alcoholic theater actor, to her forced induction as a Cuban “revolutionary Pioneer,” Nieve records in honest detail a life in which she is powerless as she loses the people and freedom she loves.

Mirroring the author's own experiences between the ages of eight and twenty, Everyone Leaves paints a vivid portrait of family life and social and political unrest in Castro's Cuba while exploring how the patriarchal and conformist notions of the Revolution betrayed the nation's women.

Translated from the Spanish by Achy Obejas

© 2025 HarperVia (Audiobook): 9780063442276

Release date

Audiobook: 22 July 2025