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70
/100
I Index Overall Rating
Readers
73/100Critics
67/100Scholars
Author:
Anthony DePalma
Publisher:
Viking
Date:
May 26, 2020
A journalist who covered Latin America takes a close look at the experiences of Cubans today, most of whom have spent their entire lives under the Castro regime and are hesitantly embracing the future. His subjects are the denizens of a neighborhood across the harbor from Old Havana, embodying in this microcosm the optimism as well as the enormous challenges that Cubans face.
What The Reviewers Say
... perceptive and keenly observant.
... DePalma vividly depicts the lives of several families in modern Cuba. DePalma’s writing is evocative and detailed, and the reader feels as though they are walking alongside the people whose aspirations and dreams he so poignantly highlights. The country comes alive with each sentence, and the end result is an homage to Cuba and the Cuban people that is both heartbreaking and hopeful..
... [a] remarkable book.
The result of [DePalma's] clear-eyed affection for this midsized communist island is a deeply reported if somewhat rambling account of Cuba’s bittersweet realities. He has a deep feeling for the place and I suspect the project was hatched before Donald Trump dashed hopes of US détente and, with that, the waves of American tourists who might have visited and found through DePalma’s book a deeper understanding of the Cubans buzzing around them.
