Wings of the morning : the flights of Orestes Lorenzo

					Estado	Reservas de ítem
Búsqueda… Branch	Book	972.91064 L887W	1	Non-fiction Collection	Búsqueda… Desconocido	Búsqueda… No disponible
Búsqueda… Central	Book	NF 972.91 L88	1	Non-fiction Collection	Búsqueda… Desconocido	Búsqueda… No disponible
Búsqueda… South	Book	972.9106 LORE	1	Non-fiction Collection	Búsqueda… Desconocido	Búsqueda… No disponible
Búsqueda… South	Book	972.910 L	1	Non-fiction Collection	Búsqueda… Desconocido	Búsqueda… No disponible

A few days before Christmas 1992, in a feat of astonishing audacity, former Cuban Air Force Major Orestes Lorenzo, flying an aging Cessna, banked sharply over Matanzas, Cuba, touched down on a busy highway, and roared off moments later with the wife and sons he had left behind when he defected to America 21 months before.--Washington Post. To be a fall '93 TV production.

Reseñas (4)

Reseña de Publisher's Weekly

Flying a six-seat Cessna, Lorenzo, a former Cuban Air Force pilot who had defected to the U.S., swooped down on a busy Florida Keys highway in late December 1992 after rescuing the wife and two sons he had left behind two years earlier. This remarkable autobiography describes his gradual disillusionment with communism and culminates in his heroic mission to retrieve his family after appeals by President George Bush, Coretta Scott King and other notables had failed to persuade Castro to allow them to emigrate. The son of a fervent Communist Party leader, Lorenzo, who now lives with his family in Florida, learned of Stalin's crimes while receiving flight training in glasnost -era Russia in the late 1980s. A moving testament, his narrative provides an insider's look at the Castro regime's personality cult, its indoctrination of children and surveillance of ordinary Cubans. 150,000 first printing; TV rights to Hearst Entertainment; author tour. (Jan.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

Kirkus Review

If Orestes Lorenzo didn't exist, Hollywood might have had to invent him--if it dared. In the early spring of 1991, the dashing fighter pilot fled Cuba in a Soviet-built MiG-23 and made it to Boca Chica Naval Air Station in the Florida Keys. Granted political asylum by the US, he immediately began trying to deliver his wife and two young sons as well, but despite repeated appeals to human- rights groups and world leaders (Bush, Castro, Gorbachev, et al.), his efforts proved futile. Undaunted, Lorenzo acquired an aging Cessna, flew back to Cuba, snatched his family from a busy coastal highway, and brought ``a plane filled with love'' back to America. Not too surprisingly, the adventure and romance of the Lorenzo story have captured the attention of the media and a public hungry for heroes. Liable to be lost in the show-biz hype about daredevil escapes, heart-rending separations, and conflicting political systems, unfortunately, is the fact that the former major has written a suspenseful and genuinely affecting account of his experiences. Among other matters, the Russian-trained aviator (now 37) offers a tellingly detailed appraisal of what it was like for him and his wife (a dentist) to come of age during the early years of Castro's revolution. Covered as well are the author's combat service in Angola (where Cuban forces were propping up a Marxist regime) and subsequent posting to the USSR at a time when glasnost was sweeping through Eastern Europe. Though on an upwardly mobile career track when he returned home, Lorenzo (with considerable support from his devoted spouse) resolved to break with Communism: The rest of the tale is, so to speak, history. Certain to grip the imagination and emotions (and to be published in both English and Spanish language editions). (First printing of 150,000; first serial rights to Vanity Fair; TV rights to Hearst Entertainment)

Reseña de Booklist

A major in the Cuban air force, Lorenzo stunned American authorities by landing a Soviet-made MiG-23 at a Florida air force base in March 1991. Bold as this defection was, it pales in comparison to his courageous and intrepid return to Cuba, nearly two years later, to rescue his wife and two young sons. Lorenzo, an intense, independent, and serious man, has chosen to tell his story himself, without the assistance of a coauthor or ghost writer, and without sensationalism. The result is a proud and methodical book about exactly why he chose to exile himself and his immediate family from their homeland. Lorenzo's tale begins with his austere childhood, during which he suffered horribly at state-run boarding schools. His desire to fly, however, was stronger than his loathing for institutions, and he ended up joining the air force. Meanwhile, he married Vicky, the only girl he ever loved. They patiently suffered through all the deprivations dictated by air-force procedures until a training stint in the Soviet Union opened their eyes to the corruption and evil at the core of socialism. Lorenzo's sense of betrayal and despair made life under Castro impossible. He believed that once he defected, Cuban officials would have to let Vicky and their boys join him in the U.S. but even after an international outcry, a dramatic hunger strike, and pleas by President Bush and Gorbachev, Cuba refused. So Lorenzo--audacious, desperate, and heroic--stole back to Cuba in a vintage Cessna and rendezvoused with brave Vicky and their sons in the dusk along a coastal highway. This is a remarkable testament to the power of love, integrity, faith, and our innate craving for freedom. (Reviewed Nov. 15, 1993)0312100086Donna Seaman

Library Journal Review

This is a gripping, impassioned tale of love and courage written by a man who risked his life and that of his family to save them all from the whims and vagaries of a failing revolution and dictatorship. On December 19, 1992, late in the afternoon, Lorenzo took off from the airstrip at Marathon Key, Florida, flew 95 miles south to the coast of Cuba in an aging twin-engine Cessna, and landed on a coastal highway where his wife and two children were anxiously waiting to be whisked away from a land of deprivation and oppression to a better world and a new life. The book is more than an intriguing story of heroism and defection. Lorenzo describes in detail his 15-year career in the Cuban Air Force, his training in the Soviet Union, his service in support of the Communist cause in such far-away places as Angola, and the final treachery that turned him against the Castro revolution. Highly recommended for popular reading collections. Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 6/15/93.-- Philip Y. Blue, Dowling Coll. Lib., Oakdale, N.Y. (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Disponible:*

Agrupado con estos títulos