Sacrificio by Ernesto Mestre-Reed

Set in Cuba in 1998, Sacrificio is a triumphant and mesmeric work of violence, loss, and identity, following a group of young HIV-positive counterrevolutionaries who seek to overthrow the Castro government.Rafa, an Afro-Cuban orphan, moves to Havana with nothing to his name and falls into a job at a caf?. He?is soon drawn into a web of bizarre, ever-shifting entanglements with his boss?s son, the charismatic Renato, leader of the counterrevolutionary group ?Los Injected Ones,? which is planning a violent overthrow of the Castro government during Pope John Paul II's upcoming visit.??When Renato goes missing, Rafa?s search for his friend takes him through various haunts in Havana: from an AIDS sanatorium, to the guest rooms of tourist hotels, to the outskirts of the capital, where he enters a phantasmagorical slum cobbled together from the city?s detritus by Los Injected Ones.??A novel of cascading prose that captures a nation in slow collapse, Sacrificio is a visionary work, capturing