Víctor Rodríguez Núñez’s prize-winning despegue / departure is a book about poetry, place, and belonging. Its rich, challenging, and subversive sonnets reveal the complexities and possibilities of Cuban contemporary poetry to a new English-language audience. Rodríguez Núñez speaks to a global generation of exiles and those whose hearts remain forever elsewhere, those who have found another home. despegue / departure is an original, inventive and unflinching examination of what it means to leave, to be left behind, and of our ability to stay.