Cuba

by Mike Gonzalez

Overview

A literary guide to one of the most fascinating countries in the world.

With its flamboyant style and rich culture, Cuba has provided the inspiration and setting for literature for decades. It has always been one of the most compelling places in the world, though perhaps never more so than now.

Following Raúl Castro's resignation as President in 2018, the era of Castroism has come to an end, and the US-Cuba rapprochement has opened the country to a generation of Americans whose only previous exposure was through film and literature. The coming years will undoubtedly bring significant changes to a country that has in many ways been frozen in time.

Cuba: A Literary Guide for Travellers takes the literary-minded traveller (either in person or in an armchair) on a vivid and illuminating journey, retracing the footsteps of writers and artists who have lived and worked in, or been inspired by, the history and landscape of Cuba. This literary guide challenges some firmly-held Western assumptions about the country, and shines a light on one of the richest and most deeply embedded literary cultures in the world.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781786726483
Publisher:	Bloomsbury Publishing
Publication date:	04/01/2021
Series:	Literary Guides for Travellers
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	288
File size:	3 MB

About the Author

Mike Gonzalez is an historian, literary critic and is emeritus professor of Latin American Studies at the University of Glasgow. He writes extensively on Latin America and is the author of The Gathering of Voices: The Twentieth Century Poetry of Latin America, Che Guevara and the Cuban Revolution, Tango: Sex and Rhythm of the City, A Rebel's Guide to Marx and Barcelona: A Literary Guide for Travellers.
Mike Gonzalez is an historian, literary critic and is emeritus professor of Latin American Studies at the University of Glasgow. He writes extensively on Latin America and is the author of The Gathering of Voices: The Twentieth Century Poetry of Latin America, Che Guevara and the Cuban Revolution, Tango: Sex and Rhythm of the City, A Rebel's Guide to Marx and Barcelona: A Literary Guide for Travellers.

Table of Contents

Introduction: The Pearl of the Caribbean

Cuba Finds Itself
Sugar and Cigars
A Nation of Slaves?
Oriente: The Wild East
Havana in the New Republic
Havana and the Revolution
The 'Special Period ': Culture and Scarcity
A Nation Divided

Bibliography
Some Bookshops
Index

Editorial Reviews

07/02/2021

This book is not a guidebook to Cuba—it doesn't list historical landmarks or sights to see; instead, historian and literary critic Gonzalez (Latin American studies, Univ. of Glasgow) provides background on the country through its literature and arts. Much of Gonzalez's attention is concentrated on Cuba's economy, past and present. He writes that Cuba was known (somewhat reductively) as a place of forbidden vices, sensual and seductive people, rum, cigars, and nightclubs and hotels. Gonzalez shares historical accounts of slavery, piracy, and the sugar industry, beginning with Columbus, who promised gold to the island's inhabitants but instead took the first step in annexing the nation to a Spanish empire that would last 400 years. U.S. politicians (like Nelson Rockefeller and the Dulles brothers) also had financial stakes in the Cuban economy and they pushed policies that supported the "Americanization of Cuba" and restrictive laws which marginalized working-class Black Cubans, Gonzalez writes. And tourism, which formed the largest part of the country's income before the 1950s Cuban Revolution, still dominates the economy today. Gonzalez's approach is scholarly but accessible as it presents the quandaries of modern Cuba. VERDICT For readers looking for a comprehensive survey of Cuban literature. Most academic libraries and large public libraries with an interest in Cuba should consider this work for their collections.—Susan Belsky, Oshkosh P.L., WI

Library Journal