PABLO MEDINA is a Cuban-born poet and essayist who has just written his first novel, "The Mark...

2: PABLO MEDINA is a Cuban-born poet and essayist who has just written his first novel, "The Marks of Birth" (Farrar.Straus.Giroux). In the novel, MEDINA explores the experience of exile through the eyes of a young character whose family is forced to flee the political unrest of a Caribbean island-nation, and begin again in America. MEDINA has also written two collections of poems: "Pork Rind and Cuban Songs" and "Arching into the Afterlife," and a book of personal essays entitled "Exiled Memories: A Cuban Childhood." MEDINA currently teaches at the MFA writing program at Warren Wilson College in North Carolina.