In this sweeping, historical, yet intimate memoir, the author details her family’s transformation from pro-Castro revolutionaries in a scrappy Havana barrio to refugees in a New Hampshire mill town—a timeless and timely tale of loss and reinvention.
Weaving pivotal events in Cuba–US history with her viejos’—elders’—stories of surviving political upheaval, impossible choices, and “refugeedom,” Property of the Revolution celebrates the indomitable spirit and wisdom of the women warriors who led the family out of Cuba, shaped its rebirth as Cuban Americans, and helped young Ana grow up hopeful, future-facing—American. But what happens when deeply buried childhood memories resurface, demanding an adult’s reckoning?
Here’s how the fiercest love, the most stubborn will, and the power of family put nine new Americans back on their feet.
“… filled with wisdom, history, joy . . . I wanted to sit with the viejos and all the love and chaos in their multi-generational home and hold on to Abuela and her stories forever.”-Marjan Kamali, USA Today best-selling author of The Lion Women of Tehran and The Stationery Shop
"There were moments when I forgot this was her memoir; it felt like my own.
Property of the Revolution is more than a memoir. It is a mirror for those of us shaped by history and migration, and a window for those seeking to understand.”
—Nazia, Afghan refugee
About Ana Hebra Flaster
Ana Hebra Flaster was nearly six when her family fled Cuba and settled in Nashua, New Hampshire. After graduating from Smith College and enjoying a career in software consulting, she began her writing career. Her writing about Cuba and Cuban Americans has appeared in the The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Boston Globe and elsewhere.
Her commentaries and storytelling have aired on NPR’s All Things Considered and PBS’s Stories from the Stage.
Property of the Revolution, her first book, won early recognition before publication as a finalist in the 2023 Restless Book’s New Immigrant Writing Prize and the 2022 Cintas Creative Writing Fellowship. Since it’s April 2025 publication, the memoir has won several international writing competitions, including first place in the 2025 Independent Book Publishers Association Awards (Memoir), International Book Awards (Creative Nonfiction), Discovery Book Awards (Nonfiction, overall), Indie Author Project (Memoir), and was selected a finalist in the 2026 Foreword Indies, Chanticleer Journey, and the 2025 Readers’ Favorite Awards.
After forty years in the Boston area, she recently moved to southern New Hampshire with her family. When she’s not writing, Ana loves birdwatching, walking in the woods, and digging in her garden.
Join Ana on Substack at CubaCurious
CubaCurious is my attempt to do my bit for my native homeland and to help fill the news gap I see in my adopted homeland. I want to keep the spotlight on the plight of political prisoners and give you a view of what average Cubans’ lives are like.
