A Planet for Rent - Couverture souple

"A Planet for Rent is the English-language debut of Yoss, one of Cuba's most lauded writers of science fiction. Translated by David Frye, these linked stories craft a picture of a dystopian future: Aliens called xenoids have invaded planet Earth, and people are looking to flee the economically and socially bankrupt remains of human civilization. Yoss' smart and entertaining novel tackles themes like prostitution, immigration and political corruption. Ultimately, it serves as an empathetic yet impassioned metaphor for modern-day Cuba, where the struggle for power has complicated every facet of society."

—Juan Vidal, NPR, Best Books of 2015

"In prose that is direct, sarcastic, sexual and often violent, A Planet for Rent criticizes Cuban reality in thinly veiled terms. Cuban defectors leave the country not on rafts but on 'unlawful space launches'; prostitutes are 'social workers'; foreigners are 'xenoids'; and Cuba is a “planet whose inhabitants have stopped believing in the future.” The book is particularly critical of the government-run tourism industry of the ’90s, which welcomed and protected tourists — often at the expense of Cubans — and whose legacy can still be felt today."

—Jonathan Wolfe, The New York Times

“Some of the best sci-fi written anywhere since the 1970s.... A Planet for Rent, like its author, a bandana-wearing, muscly roquero, is completely sui generis: riotously funny, scathing, perceptive, and yet also heart-wrenchingly compassionate.... Instantly appealing.”

—André Naffis-Sahely, The Nation

"This hilarious and imaginative novel by Cuba's premiere science-fiction writer gets my vote for most overlooked novel of the year. Yoss's book imagines a world where Earth is run as a tourist destination by capitalist aliens who have little regard for the planet or its inhabitants. A Planet for Rent is a perfect SF satire for our era of massive inequality and seemingly unchecked environmental destruction."

—Lincoln Michel, VICE

"A Planet for Rent is devastating and hilarious and somehow, amidst all those aliens, deeply deeply human."

—Daniel José Older, author of Half-Resurrection Blues

“A compelling meditation on modern imperialism.... A fascinating kaleidoscope of vignettes.... A brilliant exploration of our planet’s current social and economic inequities.... Yoss doesn’t disappoint, sling-shotting us around the world and the galaxy.... Striking, detailed.... Yoss has written a work of science fiction that speaks to fundamental problems humans deal with every day. This is not just a story about alien oppression; it’s the story of our own planet’s history and a call for change.”

—Rachel Cordasco, SF Signal, 4.5-star review

“What 1984 did for surveillance, and Fahrenheit 451 did for censorship, A Planet for Rent does for tourism.... It’s a wildly imaginative book and one that, while set in the future, has plenty of relevance to the present.”

—Adam Ley-Lange, The Bookseller

"Yoss, a famed Cuban sci-fi writer, expertly crafts numerous parallels to the conflicted history of his country and its effect on its people. In the seedy, corrupt, and ruthless world of voyeurism, there is still the hope of escape to a better future. With an excellent translation by David Frye, Yoss has produced a devastating and imaginative work that not only explores the moral dilemmas of science fiction, but of cultures that are closer to home.”

—San Francisco Book Review

"The human characters' palpable desperation and the impossibility of their circumstances become increasingly moving, and some stories, such as the blistering 'Performing Death' and its protagonist's excruciating, literally suicidal performance art, provide a wrenching depiction of the corrosive effects of prejudice and colonialism."

—Publishers Weekly

“Cuba has produced an author capable of understanding science fiction by writing it like it’s rock and roll. Yoss is a thoughtful author who simply seems to understand his work and science fiction better than many of us.”

—Ryan Britt, Electric Literature

Out of the modern-day dystopia of Cuba comes an instant classic from the island’s most celebrated science fiction author: a raucous tale of a future in which a failing Earth is at the mercy of powerful capitalist alien colonizers.

One of the most successful, decorated, and controversial science fiction writers in Cuba, Yoss (a.k.a. José Miguel Sánchez Gómez) is known as much for his unrepentant rock-and-roll 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 not-so-distant future. Wracked by economic and environmental problems, the desperate planet is rescued, for better or worse, by alien colonizers, 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 facing 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.