Ruins of a Dream

Ruins of a Dream is the result of research conducted between 2015 and 2016 on the novel El hombre que amaba a los perros (2009) by Cuban author Leonardo Padura. In a formal analysis of this work the research looked at the position of its narrators the construction of its characters and the structuring of its plot understanding its literary functioning as a cultural symptom of contemporary consumer society. Thus the pastiche of noir detective literature engendered by the author was discussed as well as his non-realistic ways of figuring the story situating the book in the midst of the aesthetic and ideological panorama of post-modernity. The aim was to clarify the dialectical relationship between the novel's narrative form and Cuba's current process of historical transition - which is leading the island towards integration into the world system of late capitalism.