Prolonged Embrace

About the Book

Prolonged Embrace is a deeply intimate memoir about family, memory, migration, grief, and enduring love across generations of Cuban women. Through vivid recollections of childhood in Matanzas, music -filled birthdays, spiritual rituals, illness and loss, Adianes Ponce reconstructs the emotional landscape shaped by her grandmother's unwavering presence. Although her grandmother never had the opportunity to travel beyond Cuba, this memoir becomes a way of carrying her voice, her memory, and her love to the wider world. Blending tenderness, cultural memory, and spiritual reflection, the book explores how love survives absence and continues living within us.

About the Author

Adianes Ponce is a Cuban-born theologian and spiritual care practitioner living in Toronto, Canada. Trained as a physician in Cuba, her work has centered on compassion, accompaniments, and the human experience of illness, grief, and healing. Deeply influenced by her grandmother and the women in her family, she writes about memory, migration, spirituality, and Cuban cultural identity with lyrical intimacy. Prolonged Embrace is her first memoir and a tribute to the bonds that shape our lives across generations.