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| Author: Stephen Smith |
Tourist brochures describe
Cuba as a Caribbean paradise. Cubans describe it as “The
Land of Miracles” in ironic tribute to the privations
of life in a Communist country. Stephen Smith went to
live there, his search for the real Cuba becoming, inevitably,
a search for Fidel Castro. Before meeting his quarry,
Smith traversed the island in an old American car. Along
the way, he dines on giant rat, checks into a Love Hotel,
poses as a second-hand arms dealer, and gets his head
down on Castro’s bed. An insightful, disarmingly
witty portrait of a country where communism and voodoo
co-exist, and where the influence of its leader continues
to throw a long shadow.
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From Publishers Weekly
A writer's writer, Smith's reportage is nearly flawless as he recounts
his journey in search of the real Land of Miracles (a sardonic reference
made by Cubans to the beautiful but impoverished island). In heat "like
being swaddled in freshly steamed laundry, though not so aromatic," Smith
leads readers through formerly grand hotels, local religions that mix
odd histories with blood sacrifice, and other unique cultural landmarks
(the one horse town on "Treasure Island," the 50-year-old cars,
the weapons trade). Genuine and game, Smith is equally at ease recording
a heart-to-heart with a down-and-out prostitute as he is a side-splitting
account of a tango lesson in a tiny apartment, in which he learns how
to hurl his partner "and save her in the nick of time from dashing
her brains out against a refrigerator with a languid and yet utterly masculine
catch." A large cast of characters fleshes out Smith's gutsy wanderings,
including both Castro and his dissidents, one of whom sums up the island's
forlorn beauty and diminished spirit thusly: "After 36 years of repression
... we're an exhausted people... I believe that we're peaceful-more prepared
for receiving tourists than making war." Though earmarked for travelers,
this could easily become a classic look into the shuttered world of Cuba.
© Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. |
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$15.95 (softcover)
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