Finding Manana

A Memoir of a Cuban Exodus

By: Mirta Ojito

A vibrant, moving memoir of prizewinning journalist and New York Times reporter Mirta Ojito and her departure from Cuba in the Mariel boatlift—an enduring story of a family caught up in the tumultuous politics of the twentieth century.

Mirta Ojito was one teenager among more than a hundred thousand fellow refugees who traveled to Miami during the unprecedented events of the Mariel boatlift. Growing up, Ojito was eager to fit in and join Castro’s Young Pioneers, but as she grew older and began to understand the darker side of the Cuban revolution, she and her family began to aspire to a safer, happier life. When Castro opened Cuba’s borders for those who wanted to leave, her family was more than ready to go: they had been waiting for the opportunity for twenty years.

Now an acclaimed reporter, Ojito tells her story and reckons with her past with all of the determination and intelligence—and the will to confront darkness—that carried her through the boatlift. In this stunning autobiography, she sets out to find the people who set this exodus in motion, including the Vietnam vet on whose boat, Mañana, she finally crossed the treacherous Florida Strait. In Finding Mañana, Ojito and tell the stories of the boatlift’s key players in superb and poignant detail—chronicling both individual lives and a major historical event.

©2025 Mirta Ojito (P)2025 Penguin Audio

Critic reviews

“It’s impossible not to admire the boldness, the candor, the moral toughness of Ms. Ojito’s writing. In this wonderful memoir, she ransoms herself from the seductions of nostalgia, and reclaims instead the beleaguered Cuba of her childhood—a Cuba that is all the more interesting for not being looked at through the prism of longing and desire.”—The New York Times

“Until I read this book, the Mariel refugees were headlines in a newspaper, stereotypes fed by political rhetoric. In Finding Mañana, Mirta Ojito has given me a peek behind the headlines, and a sense of how history affects the individual."—Esmeralda Santiago, author of When I was Puerto Rican

“Finding Mañana is a strongly written, straight-shooting and affecting memoir about one family’s experiences leading up to the Mariel boatlift out of Cuba. Rich in detail and concise in its capturing of that chapter of Cuban history, the book is also a touching tale of a young woman’s coming of age during a time of great political turmoil and personal travails.”—Oscar Hijuelos, author of The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love