Miami is her home now, but the writer and author Ana Menéndez has had many homes — all of which show up in her work.
She looks for adventure, and her characters find it.
Her latest book, The Apartment, includes a parade of personalities from Latin America to the Czech Republic. There are risk-takers and recluses. The naive and the scorned.
All of them move to and through a single apartment on Miami Beach throughout the decades. The apartment itself is a ghostly character. Time is a character, too.
Like her characters, Ana has moved through the world with an adventurous spirit. She was a freelance writer in New Dehli, a journalist in the Middle East — Istanbul, Jordan, Cairo. She was a Fulbright Scholar in Egypt.
Riskiest of all? She’s been a metro columnist at the Miami Herald. Now, she teaches at Florida International University, where she’s an English and humanities professor.
Has she finally found a place to call home?
On the Aug. 3 episode of Sundial, Menéndez joined us to talk about her new novel The Apartment and finding "home" in different places.
On Sundial's previous episode, director D. Smith joined us to talk about making her film debut in her hometown.
Listen to Sundial Monday through Thursday on WLRN, 91.3 FM, live at 1 p.m., rebroadcast at 8 p.m. Missed a show? Find every episode of Sundial on your favorite podcast app, such as Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, and Spotify.
