A hired reader brings a famous Russian novel to the workers, and its story begins to change their lives.
Anna in the Tropics by Nilo Cruz is a play set for IGCSE and International GCSE Literature (Cambridge International 0475). The board decides the set texts and the years they are examined, and your school confirms them. Our teachers teach whichever text your child sits.
What it is
In a family-run cigar factory in Ybor City, Tampa, workers roll cigars by hand while a lector reads aloud to them. The family hires a new lector, Juan Julián, who chooses Tolstoy's Anna Karenina. The story of love and betrayal soon mirrors the lives of his listeners.
Conchita, unhappy in her marriage to Palomo, is drawn to Juan Julián, and her sister Marela loses herself in the novel. Cheché, a relative of the owner, distrusts lectors and wants machines to replace hand work.
Tension builds between tradition and change, and between passion and duty. The play ends in sudden violence, yet the reading of the novel carries on.
Themes and ideas to track
The power of stories
The novel gives the workers words for feelings they had kept hidden. Cruz shows literature changing how people see their own lives.
Tradition and modernisation
Hand-rolling and the lector belong to an older way of working. Cheché's push for machines threatens the culture the factory has built.
Love, desire and marriage
Conchita and Palomo look at their marriage honestly as the novel unfolds. The play asks whether passion and loyalty can live together.
Migration and identity
The characters hold on to Cuban customs in a new country. Their culture gives them belonging, but it also faces pressure to change.
How the writer builds it
Cruz uses lyrical, poetic language, so ordinary speech often turns into rich imagery. Readings from Anna Karenina run alongside the action, letting one story comment on another. Scenes move between the factory floor and private moments, contrasting public and personal life.
Silence, music and the rhythm of work add to the mood. Look at how a passage from the novel changes the way characters behave afterwards.
How to write about it in the exam
Show that you understand the link between the novel being read and the lives on stage. Pick precise moments where the language becomes poetic and explain its effect on an audience.
Compare how different characters react to the same reading. Keep references short, and avoid retelling the plot of either story.
A teacher can practise essay planning on Anna in the Tropics with your child in a one-hour trial.
An exam-style question to practise
How does Cruz present the influence of Anna Karenina on the characters?
Plan three points before you write, with a short quotation for each. Then check your plan against the mark scheme section below.
More question angles
- Explore the ways Cruz presents the relationship between Conchita and Palomo.
- How does Cruz present Cheché in the play?
- Discuss how Cruz presents the conflict between tradition and change.
How this maps to the mark scheme
Examiners mark Literature answers against assessment objectives. These are the skills the paper rewards. For Cambridge International 0475, the objectives are summarised on our qualification page.
- AO1: Show detailed knowledge of the content of literary texts in the three main forms (drama, poetry and prose), supported by reference to the text.
- AO2: Understand the meanings of literary texts and their contexts, and explore texts beyond surface meanings to show deeper awareness of ideas and attitudes.
- AO3: Recognise and appreciate ways in which writers use language, structure and form to create and shape meanings and effects.
- AO4: Communicate a sensitive and informed personal response to literary texts.
- The four assessment objectives carry equal weight, about 25% each.
For Anna in the Tropics, build your argument around “The power of stories” and “Tradition and modernisation”. Support each point with a short quotation. Then analyse the writer's method, using the section above.
Keep context about Nilo Cruz brief and tied to the words on the page.
Read the text alongside these notes. This page is our own analysis and original teaching material. We quote at most a short attributed phrase where a point needs it, so keep your copy of the play open as you read.
Where to go next
Plan your essay with our guide to planning a literature essay, then see a worked answer in our literature essay structure model response. Browse more set-text notes or read about Literature in English tuition.
When you have written an answer on Anna in the Tropics, a paid one-hour trial lesson lets the teacher who would continue mark it with you.