The Old Dog, Perro Viejo in Spanish, can’t remember when he was ever called anything else. The old master gave him the name when he was just a child. Perro Viejo sniffed everything—searching for his mother’s aroma—as if he were one of the old bloodhounds who hunted escaped slaves. Perro Viejo closed off his heart after awhile, but he continued sniffing. In this slim novella, the Old Dog is worn out by years of hard labor on his master’s sugar plantation. He has never lived anywhere else, nor has he ever ventured be yond the gate he is charged with opening. He is lame, hard of hearing, and almost blind, but he bears the most painful scars in his heart. Casa de las Américas Prize (Cuba’s highest literary honor). lmp

Originally published as Perro Viejo in Spanish by Casa de las Américas, in 2006. Translated by David Unger.

After a hard life of constant disappointment, Perro Viejo, an old slave on a Cuban sugar plantation, has given up, until an encounter with a fellow slave and an escape to freedom make him open his heart to the world once again.