Cultural Writing. Latino/Latina Studies. Illustrated by Mauricio Trenard Sayago.If you travel to Cuba, the people will greet you with a smile. Right away they'll want you to come to their home and eat a meal. In the meal, you'll find a mixture of foods and flavors from Spain and Africa--and from many Caribbean cultures as well. In Cuban folktales, you will taste the same delicious mixture of flavors. Folklorist and storyteller Joe Hayes first visited Cuba in 2001. He fell in love with the island and its people and began to look for opportunities to meet and listen to Cuban storytellers and to share the stories he knew from the American Southwest. He has returned every year, establishing a rich cultural exchange between US and Cuban storytellers. Out of that collaboration came this savory collection of Cuban folktales, which Joe frames with an introduction and an all-important Note to Storytellers.

Joe Hayes is one of America's premier storytellers—a nationally recognized teller of tales from the Hispanic, Native American and Anglo cultures. His bilingual Spanish-English tellings have earned him a distinctive place among America's storytellers. His bilingual books are used in schools all over the United States. For twenty-six summers Joe has been the resident storyteller at the Wheelwright Museum of the American Indian in Santa Fe. He has shared stories in over 3,000 schools and spoken at educational conferences throughout the country. He has appeared at the National Storytelling Festival in Jonesborough, TN, and one of his tales was chosen for the book Best Loved Stories Told At The National Storytelling Festival. His first book, The Day It Snowed Tortillas, was published in 1982. It is a collection of some of Joe's favorite Hispanic stories from New Mexico, and has become a regional classic.