Security Questions, translated from the Spanish by Harry Bauld, is at once a lyric sequence shaped by Osdany Morales' coming of age in small-town Cuba during the late stages of Fidel Castro's regime and a testament of exile and immigration: the traces that remain in the wake of forsaking a homeland for the uncertainties of the present. 

Each poem in this playful and trenchant collection unfolds as a reply to its title, and each title a question in English: the kind of security prompt used to establish an online identity, which Morales encountered as a newly arrived immigrant. With a mix of humour, irony and sincerity, he transforms these absurd authentication questions into the radiant poetry of a new 'American' persona.



Osdany Morales was born in Nueva Paz, Cuba. He is the author of the short story collections Minuciosas puertas estrechas [Meticulous Narrow Doors] and Antes de los aviones [Before Airplanes], the novels The Last Librarian (Dalkey Archive, 2017) and Zozobra [Anxiety], the genre-defying Lengua materna [Native Language], and the poetry collection Security Questions. His work has received the 2006 David Award, a 2008 Casa de Teatro prize, and the 2012 Alejo Carpentier Award.