A Planet for Rent

The most successful, decorated, and controversial Cuban sci-fi writer of all time, Yoss (a.k.a. José Miguel Sánchez Gómez) is known as much for his unrepentant rocker aesthetic as for his acerbic portraits of the island under Communism. In his bestselling A Planet for Rent, Yoss critiques ‘90s Cuba by drawing parallels with a possible Earth of the the not-so-distant future. Wracked by economic and environmental problems, the desperate planet is rescued, for better or worse, by alien invaders, who remake the planet as a tourist destination. Ruled over by a brutal interstellar bureaucracy, dispossessed humans seek better lives via the few routes available — working for the colonial police; eking out a living as black marketeers, drug dealers, or artists; prostituting themselves to exploitative extraterrestrial visitors — or they face the cold void of space in rickety illegal ships. This inventive and raucous book marks the English-language debut of an astonishingly brave and imaginative Latin American voice.