Start gifting
Libro.fm for Business
Start a membership, get two free audiobooks
Audiobooks by Latine Authors
Send as gift
Add to Wish List
Almost ready!
In order to save audiobooks to your Wish List you must be signed in to your account.
Log in Create account
Limited-time offer
Get two free audiobooks!
Now’s a great time to shop indie. When you start a new one credit per month membership supporting local bookstores with promo code SWITCH, we’ll give you two bonus audiobook credits at sign-up.
Sign up today
Gift audiobook credit bundles
You pick the number of credits, your recipient picks the audiobooks, and your local bookstore is supported by your purchase.
Start giftingI Was Never the First Lady
A Novel
Length
6 hours 24 minutes
Language
English
Narrators
Krizia Bajos & Frankie Corzo
This audiobook uses AI narration.
We’re taking steps to make sure AI narration is transparent.
Learn moreA lush, sensuous, and original tale of family, love, and history, set against the backdrop of the Cuban Revolution and its aftermath.
Nadia Guerra’s mother, Albis Torres, left when Nadia was just ten years old. Growing up, the proponents of revolution promised a better future. Now that she’s an adult, Nadia finds that life in Havana hasn’t quite matched its promise; instead it has stifled her rebellious and artistic desires. Each night she DJs a radio show government censors block from broadcasting. Frustrated, Nadia finds hope and a way out when she wins a scholarship to study in Russia.
Leaving Cuba offers her the chance to find her long lost mother and her real father. But as she embarks on a journey east, Nadia soon begins to question everything she thought she knew and understood about her past.
As Nadia discovers more about her family, her fate becomes entwined with that of Celia Sanchez, an icon of the Cuban Revolution—a resistance fighter, ingenious spy, and the rumored lover of Fidel Castro. A tale of revolutionary ideals and promise, Celia’s story interweaves with Nadia’s search for meaning, and eventually reveals secrets Nadia could never have dreamed.
Translated from the Spanish by Achy Obejas
Wendy Guerra is a contributor for CNN en Español and has been published by various magazines and newspapers, including the Spanish dailies El País and El Mundo and the New York Times. Her first collection of poetry, Platea a oscuras, earned her a prize from the University of Havana when she was just seventeen. In 2006 she won the Bruguera Prize for Everyone Leaves. Although her novels have been translated into several languages, only one of them has been published in Cuba. She currently resides in the US.
