Mirta Ojito — Deeper Than the Ocean - with Julia Sweig

One hundred years after the shipwreck of the Valbanera, known to history as the "poor man's Titanic," Mara Denis gets an assignment to report on the Canary Islands, where, she has been told, her ancestors lived before they moved to Cuba. Unexpectedly, she discovers that the grandmother her mother cherished was listed among the dead of the Valbanera, years before Mara's mother was even born. This fateful twist changes everything Mara thought she knew about her family and herself, and sends her on a quest to find the truth about her family. If her great grandmother is a ghost, who is she and where did she come from? In spare, beautiful writing and in a dual narrative, the author transports the reader to the Canary Islands and Cuba in the early part of the twentieth century and New York and Key West in the present. This epic tale of a young woman's intense passion for her beloved as well as the redeeming power of family secrets at last uncovered will leave readers wanting more when they reach the last page.Born in Havana, Mirta Ojito is a journalist, professor, and author who has worked at the Miami Herald, El Nuevo Herald, and the New York Times. The recipient of an Emmy for the documentary Harvest of Misery as well as a shared Pulitzer for national reporting in 2001 for a series of articles about race in America for the New York Times, Ojito was an assistant professor of journalism at Columbia University for almost nine years. She is the author of two award-winning nonfiction books: Finding Mañana: A Memoir of a Cuban Exodus and Hunting Season: Immigration and Murder in an All-American Town. Currently, Ojito is a senior director on the NBC News Standards team working at Telemundo Network. Deeper than the Ocean is her debut novel.Ojito is joined in conversation with Julia Sweig, the author of the award-winning 2021 New York Times bestseller, Lady Bird Johnson: Hiding in Plain Sight.  She is the host and executive producer of the podcast In Plain Sight: Lady Bird Johnson, adapted for documentary film and broadcast on Hulu, garnering several awards and multiple Emmy nominations. She is currently writing a biography of the pioneering AIDS activist and scientist, Dr. Mathilde Krim. She is also the author of books on Cuba, Latin America, and American foreign policy. Her short and long form writing has appeared in the New York Times, the Atlantic, the Washington Post, Financial Times, Los Angeles Times, and Foreign Affairs, among other outlets. Her book Inside the Cuban Revolution won the American Historical Association’s award for best book by an independent scholar. Sweig holds a doctorate and master’s degree from the Johns Hopkins Universityhttps://politics-prose.com/book/9781454961901?ic_referral=zbnS1j0OP8w-44IBTK2op0D9efshUYJFmX87esr9w90wM8zcsJtp5isYlvvBcWRUzOX80unyc0t-M6ZkjiI-iLTMkU_syiCHRimVByzw5c8xuwRUuu9i7oxx9BvnYSDtbiY44Hg