Cuban cigar maker fights labor strife and vigilante violence in new book

Tuesday, May 04 2010

MINNEAPOLIS, MN, (24-7PressRelease) -- In 1901, a group of cigar makers from Tampa were kidnapped and deported to a deserted stretch of beach somewhere in Central America. They were labor leaders, men who had pushed the tobacco industry into a long, crippling strike over workplace rights and were brandished as radicals by a group of concerned citizens. These men struggled to find their way in the hot, tropical jungles of Central America and somehow managed to return to Tampa hailed as heroes by the local Latin-American community. 

This little-known slice of American history is a story that has rarely been told. But now, Minneapolis-based award-winning Cuban-Irish author Mark Carlos McGinty brings you the complete tale in a fictionalized story of the turbulent cigar industry and the volatile Cigar City.

The Cigar Maker is the story of a Cuban rebel who battles labor strife and vigilante violence in the Cigar Capital of the World, Tampa's Ybor City in the early 1900s. Based on true events and his family's history, McGinty's second novel celebrates family and culture in a city made famous by hand-rolled cigars and their connection to organized crime, violence and racism. 

The Cigar Maker
By Mark Carlos McGinty
List $19.95
464 Pages / 6x9 trade soft cover
Seventh Avenue Productions

For more information visit thecigarmaker.net.