The story of a love that changed the destiny of a nation... Set near the turn of the last century and based on the life of Cuban poet and revolutionary hero José Martí, Silent Wing bursts with passion, sensuality, and turbulence as it tells one of the most famous love stories in all of Latin America: The tale of the desperate and heartbreaking conflict an idealistic young man experiences when he finds himself caught between the woman he loves and the one he has promised to wed. Julián, a charismatic Cuban poet possessed with a passionate love of freedom, is exiled from his homeland for demonstrating in favor of his country's independence from the tyrannical hold of Spain. He lands in Mexico City, where he proposes marriage to Lucía, the spinster daughter of a Cuban lawyer exiled in that city. Knowing that the wedding must wait until he establishes himself professionally, Julián goes to Guatemala City, where a teaching job awaits and where Lucía is to follow him in time. What Julián has not reckoned on is that in Guatemala he will meet and fall madly in love with Sol, daughter of that country's great liberator, Don Manuel. For Sol, on the verge of womanhood, Julián is her first love, and she places her trust in him with total abandon. But Julián, a man of great principle, knows that even though he loves Sol beyond limits, he is expected to honor the pledge he made to Lucía, no matter how great the sacrifice, or how tragic the consequences. Vividly portraying an era of honor and almost mystical innocence, yet intricately interwoven with political intrigue and turmoil, José Raúl Bernardo -- whose previous novel, The Secret of the Bulls, was named one of the best works of first fiction for 1996 by the Los Angeles Times -- weaves the kind of rich historical tapestry that has made great bestsellers of such novels as The Autumn of the Patriarch and Like Water for Chocolate. Read Less