Art and Culture

Pérez, Louis A. On Becoming Cuban: Nationality, Identity and Culture. New York: Harper Perennial, 2001. Seminal and highly readable account of the development of Cuban culture from colonialism through communism.

Robinson, Eugene. Last Dance in Havana. New York: Free Press, 2004. One man’s insightful impressions of contemporary Cuba, and the importance of music and dance as an expression of Cuban culture and as a palliative to the harsh realities of life under a Communist dictator.

Biography

Anderson, Jon Lee. Che Guevara: A Revolutionary Life. New York: Grove Press, 1997. This definitive biography reveals heretofore unknown details of Che’s life and presents an astounding profile that shows the dark side of this revolutionary icon.

Castro, Fidel. My Early Years. New York: Ocean Press, 1998. Fidel Castro reflects on his childhood, youth, and student activism, with an introduction by Gabriel García Márquez.

Geyer, Georgie Anne. Guerrilla Prince: The Untold Story of Fidel Castro. Boston: Little Brown, 1991. This sobering profile of the Cuban leader strips Castro bare, revealing his charisma and cunning, pride and paranoia, and megalomania and myth.

Gimbel, Wendy. Havana Dreams: A Story of Cuba. London: Virago, 1998. The moving story of Naty Revuelta’s tormented love affair with Fidel Castro and the terrible consequences of a relationship as heady as the doomed romanticism of the Revolution.

Quirk, Robert E. Fidel Castro. New York: W. W. Norton, 1993. A detailed, none-too-complimentary profile of the Cuban leader.

Szulc, Tad. Fidel: A Critical Portrait. New York: Morrow, 1986. A riveting profile of the astounding life of this larger-than-life figure. This marvelous read is the most thorough of the Castro biographies.

Cigars

Perelman, Richard B. Perelman’s Pocket Cyclopedia of Havana Cigars. Perelman, Pioneer & Co, 1998. More than 160 pages with over 25 color photos providing a complete list of cigar brands and shapes. Handy 4- by 6-inch size makes it easy to carry in the coat pocket and invaluable as a reference source when shopping.

Stout, Nancy. Habanos: The Story of the Havana Cigar. New York: Rizzoli, 1997. Beautifully illustrated coffee table book that tells you all you want to know about the growing and processing of tobacco and its metamorphosis into fine Habanos cigars.

Coffee-Table

Baker, Christopher P. Cuba Classics: A Celebration of Vintage American Automobiles. Northampton, MA: Interlink Books, 2004. This lavishly illustrated coffee table book pays homage to Cuba’s astonishing wealth of antique cars, revealing the time-worn splendor of classic American automobiles spanning eight decades. The text traces the long love affair between Cubans and the U.S. automobile and offers a paean to the owners who keep their weary cacharros running with resourcefulness, ingenuity, and indefatigable good humor.

Barclay, Juliet (photographs by Martin Charles). Havana: Portrait of a City. London: Cassell, 1993. A well-researched and abundantly illustrated coffee table volume especially emphasizing the city’s history.

Carley, Rachel. Cuba: 400 Years of Architectural Legacy. New York: Whitney Library of Design, 1997. Beautifully illustrated coffee table book that spans the island in tracing the development of architectural styles, from early colonial days to the Communist aesthetic hiatus and post-Soviet renaissance.

Cushing, Lincoln. ¡Revolución! Cuban Poster Art. San Francisco: Chronicle Books, 2003. This splendid book assembles nearly 150 powerful examples of popular art from the 1950s through 1980s, providing a window into a truly revolutionary chapter in graphic design.

Evans, Walker. Walker Evans: Cuba. New York: Getty Publications, 2001. Recorded in 1933, these 60 beautiful black-and-white images capture the “eternal Cuba” in Evans’s portraits, which portray in stark clarity the misery and hardships of life in the era. Andrei Codrescu wrote an accompanying essay.

Harvey, David Alan, and Elizabeth Newhouse. Cuba. Washington, D.C.: National Geographic, 2000. An acclaimed photographer and a National Geographic editor brilliantly display their passion for Cuba in this poignant and stunningly illustrated book that puts a human face on the rich culture.

Kenny, Jack. Cuba. Ann Arbor, MI: Corazon Press, 2005. Beautiful black-and-white images that capture the essence of Cuba and provide an intimate portrait into its soul.

Llanes, Lillian. Havana Then and Now. San Diego: Thunder Bay Press, 2004. A delightful collection of images wedding centenary black-and-whites to color photos showing the same locales as they are now.

General

Cabrera Infante, Guillermo. ¡Mea Cuba! New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1994. An acerbic, indignant, raw, wistful, and brilliant set of essays in which the author pours out his bile at the Castro regime.

Fuentes, Norberto. Hemingway in Cuba. Secaucus, NY: Lyle Stuart, 1984. The seminal, lavishly illustrated study of the Nobel Prize–winner’s years in Cuba.

Martínez-Fernández, Luis, et al. Encyclopedia of Cuba: People, History, Culture. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2004. Comprehensive twin-volume set with chapters arranged by themes, such as History, Plastic Arts, and Sports. Indispensable for serious students of Cuba.

Shnookal, Deborah, and Mirta Muñiz, eds. José Martí Reader. New York: Ocean Press, 1999. An anthology of writings, poetry, and letters of one of the most brilliant and impassioned Latin American intellectuals of the 19th century.

History, Economics, and Politics

Bardach, Ann Louise. Cuba Confidential. New York: Random House, 2002. A brilliant study of the failed politics of poisoned Cuban–U.S. relations that exposes the tragedy of families torn asunder by the Revolution, and the spiteful, self-seeking power plays and grand hypocrisies of the warring factions in Washington, Miami, and Havana.

Gott, Richard. Cuba: A New History. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2005. Erudite, entertaining, and concise, yet with all the masterful detail that commends a tour de force.

Latell, Brian. After Fidel: The Inside Story of Castro’s Regime and Cuba’s Next Leader. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005. A former senior CIA intelligence analyst brilliantly profiles the personalities of Fidel and Raúl Castro, providing fascinating insights into their quixotic, mutually dependent relationship and the motivations that have shaped their antagonistic relationship with the United States.

Oppenheimer, Andres. Castro’s Final Hour. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1992. A sobering, in-depth exposé of the uglier side of both Fidel Castro and the state system, including controversial topics such as drug trading.

Smith, Wayne. The Closest of Enemies. New York: W. W. Norton, 1987. Essential reading, this personal account of the author’s years serving as President Carter’s man in Havana during the 1970s is a moving and entertaining account providing key insights into the complexities that haunt U.S. relations with Cuba.

Thomas, Hugh. Cuba: The Pursuit of Freedom, 1726–1969. New York: Harper & Row, 1971. A seminal work—called a “magisterial conspectus of Cuban history“—tracing the evolution of conditions that eventually engendered the Revolution.

Thomas, Hugh. The Cuban Revolution. London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1986. The definitive work on the Revolution offering a brilliant analysis of all aspects of the country’s diverse and tragic history.

Wyden, Peter. Bay of Pigs: The Untold Story. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1979. An in-depth and riveting exposé of the CIA’s ill-conceived mission to topple Castro.

Literature

Cabrera Infante, Guillermo. Three Trapped Tigers. New York: Avon, 1985. A poignant and comic novel that captures the essence of life in Havana before the ascendance of Castro.

García, Cristina. Dreaming in Cuban. New York: Ballantine Books, 1992. A brilliant, poignant, languid, and sensual tale of a family divided politically and geographically by the Cuban revolution and the generational fissures that open on each side.

Greene, Graham. Our Man in Havana. New York: Penguin, 1971. The story of Wormold, a conservative British vacuum-cleaner salesman in prerevolutionary Havana. Recruited by British intelligence, Wormold finds little information to pass on, and so invents it. Full of the sensuality of Havana and the tensions of Batista’s last days.

Gutiérrez, Pedro Juan. Dirty Havana Trilogy. New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2001. A bawdy, hilarious, and depressing semi-biographical take on the gritty life of Havana’s underclass—begging, whoring, escaping hardship through sex and santería—during the harshest years of the Special Period.

Hemingway, Ernest. Islands in the Stream. New York: Harper Collins, 1970. An exciting triptych. The second and third parts are set in Cuba during the war and draw heavily on the author’s own experience hunting Nazi U-boats at sea.

Hemingway, Ernest. The Old Man and the Sea. New York: Scribner’s, 1952. The simple yet profound story of an unlucky Cuban fisherman, the slim novel won the author the Nobel Prize for Literature.

Smith, Martin Cruz. Havana Bay. New York: Random House, 1999. Smith engages us in a best-selling murder mystery as Russian Cold War spy Renko returns, this time to the “faded, lovely, dangerous” Cuban capital.

Travel Guides

Calder, Nigel. Cuba: A Cruising Guide. St. Ives, England: Imray Laurie Norie & Wilson, 1999. A superb navigational guide for yachters.

Charles, Simon. The Cruising Guide to Cuba. St. Petersburg, FL: Cruising Guide Publications, 1997. Invaluable reference guide for every sailor wishing to charter sailing or motorized craft. Charles gives it to you straight. His goal is “to seek only to ensure the safe passage of all who would use the seas to travel where they will.”

Lightfoot, Claudia. Havana: A Cultural and Literary Companion. Northampton, MA: Interlink Publishing, 2001. The author leads you through Havana past and present using literary quotations and allusions to add dimension to the sites and experiences.

Rodríguez, Eduardo Luis. The Havana Guide: Modern Architecture 1925–65. New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 2000. A marvelous guide to individual structures—homes, churches, theaters, government buildings—representing the best of modern architecture (1925–65) throughout Havana.

Smith, Barbara and Walter. Bicycling Cuba. Woodstock, VT: Backcountry Guides, 2002. A detailed and practical guide to cycling in Cuba, with routes and maps spanning the entire country.

Travel Literature

Aschkenas, Lea. Es Cuba: Life and Love on an Illegal Island. Emeryville, CA: Seal Press, 2006. A beautiful story of true love straight from the heart. Told with gentle compassion for a culture and country, Es Cuba reveals with exquisite honesty how the possibilities and hopes of the heart can surmount even the most obdurate personal hardships and political barriers.

Baker, Christopher P. Mi Moto Fidel: Motorcycling through Castro’s Cuba. Washington, D.C.: National Geographic’s Adventure Press, 2001. Winner of both the Lowell Thomas Award Travel Book of the Year and the North American Travel Journalist Association’s Grand Prize, this erotically charged tale of the author’s 7,000-mile adventure by motorcycle through Cuba offers a bittersweet look at the last Marxist “utopia.”

Codrescu, Andrei, and David Graham. ¡Ay, Cuba! New York: St Martin’s Press, 1999. A trenchant and witty social criticism that takes a scything view of Castroism while reflecting the author’s affection and sensitivity for the Cuban culture and people.

Corbett, Ben. This is Cuba: An Outlaw Culture Survives. Cambridge, MA: Westview Press, 2002. A stinging indictment of the havoc, despair, and restraints wrought by four decades of fidelismo, this first-person account of life in Castro’s Cuba beautifully but tragically exposes the harsh realities of a people struggling to survive.

Guillermoprieto, Alma. Dancing With Cuba. New York: Vintage, 2005. Poignant memoir of the author’s life teaching dance in Havana during the Revolution.

Miller, Tom. Trading with the Enemy: A Yankee Travels Through Castro’s Cuba. New York: Basic Books, 1996. Told by a famous author who lived in Cuba for almost a year, this travelogue is thoughtful, engaging, insightful, compassionate, and told in rich narrative.

Miller, Tom, ed. Travelers’ Tales: Cuba. San Francisco: Travelers’ Tales, 2001. Extracts from the contemporary works of 38 authors provide a lively and entertaining account of Cuba that is at times hilarious, cautionary, and inspiring.

Ryan, Alan, ed. The Reader’s Companion to Cuba. New York: Harcourt Brace & Co., 1997. A gathering of some of the best travel writing about Cuba dating from the mid-1800s, spanning an eclectic menu of authors from John Muir and Graham Greene to mob lawyer Frank Ragano and baseball’s Tommy Lasorda.

Tattlin, Isadora. Cuba Diaries: An American Housewife in Havana. Chapel Hill, NC: Algonquin Books, 2002. A fascinating and marvelous account of four years in Havana spent raising two children, entertaining her husband’s clients (including Fidel), and contending with chronic shortages. A must-read.

© Christopher P. Baker from Moon Cuba, 4th Edition