Cuba in the 1970s. Ten-year-old Rauli lives in hostile world: his older brother is violent; his philandering father doesn't understand him; his intelligence and sensitivity do not endear him to the other children at school. Rauli knows three things to be true: he was born in the wrong body; he will die at age eighteen as a soldier in the Cuban intervention in Angola; and he is the reincarnation of the Trojan princess Cassandra. Burdened with knowledge of tragedies yet to come, Rauli nonetheless strives to know himself. -- Adapted from book jacket.