“Exquisite, dreamlike… The poetry of Cruz’s writing is what those who love his work cite most often about his style, and Sotto Voce has that… It also contains passages that are realistic, whimsical, sensual and heartbreaking. Cruz may be that rarity, a poet of the stage, but he is first and foremost a dramatist.”

—Christine Dolen, Miami Herald

The millennium, New York City. Bemadette Kahn, an eighty-year-old German-born writer, spends her days in her apartment, trying to forget the past. Until Saquiel Rafaeli, a young Jewish-Cuban researcher, appears on her doorstep, forcing her to confront those haunted memories. He’s eager to learn about Bemadette’s long-lost lover, Ariel Strauss, who set sail in 1939 aboard the St. Louis, never to be seen again. With layered lyrical language and vibrant intimacy, Sotto Voce is an imaginative exploration of the power of memory, love and human connection.

Nilo Cruz is the author of the Pulitzer Prize–winning Anna in the Tropics, as well as Beauty of the Father, Two Sisters and a Piano, Lorca in a Green Dress, Dancing on Her Knees, Night Train to Bolina and other works.