The Lost Apple

From 1960 to 1962, 14,048 Cuban minors arrived in Miami. Maria de los Angeles Torres was six years old when she took part in this massive airlift—now known as Operation Pedro Pan—in which parents, terrified that the new communist government would ship their children to Soviet work camps, sent them instead to America. Torres examines the event from both a historical and a personal perspective. This "relentless investigator of history" (Miami Herald) forces declassification of key documents, challenging us all finally to come to terms with this pivotal yet largely neglected exodus.

"Although there are many books by and about the Pedro Pans, The Lost Apple is one of the best. Torres manages to keep a healthy historical balance in a tricky political landscape, never losing her footing along the way . . . The Lost Apple moves along like a good novel [and] Torres even makes politics come alive."
—Susan Fernandez, Miami Herald

"A thoughtful, balanced addition to the frequently contentious scholarship on U.S.-Cuban history."
—Kirkus Reviews

"Deeply felt and impressively researched, The Lost Apple undertakes the difficult work of reconciliation—between parents and children, exiles and revolutionaries, the Cuba of yesterday and the Cuba of today."
—Gustavo Perez Firmat, author of Life on the Hyphen: The Cuban-American Way

A frequent media commentator on Cuba-U.S. relations, Maria de los Angeles Torres is associate professor of political science at DePaul University and author of several books, including In the Land of Mirrors: Cuban Exile Politics in the United States. She lives in Chicago, Illinois.