Cuba en la encrucijada / Cuba on the Verge: 12 Writers on Continuity and Change in Havana and Across the

About Cuba en la encrucijada / Cuba on the Verge: 12 Writers on Continuity and Change in Havana and Across the

Un libro de crónicas cubanas de la mano de doce de los más prestigiosos periodistas y escritores de nuestro tiempo que abarca política y arte, música y béisbol, presente y pasado, y nos ofrecen una excepcional instantánea de la particular encrucijada en la que se encuentra la sociedad cubana.

“De todas las preguntas que debe hacerse el periodismo, solo hay una que, si hablamos de Cuba, puede responderse fácilmente: dónde. Todo el mundo sabe más o menos dónde queda Cuba. Para las demás: ‘qué es Cuba, quiénes son los cubanos, cómo es Cuba, cuándo comenzó Cuba a ser lo que es, por qué Cuba es como es’, y diversas variaciones y combinaciones de lo mismo no solo no hay respuestas fáciles sino que cada quien parece tener las suyas.

“Los doce textos que componen este libro procuran alejarse de los reduccionismos más tópicos y contar el país desde el territorio más peligroso, y por lo mismo más interesante, de la duda y la contradicción. Contar Cuba -como contar el desembarco en Normandía o la caída del Muro de Berlín- es contar la Historia en mayúsculas: una tarea ambiciosa. Pero, en el tartamudeo ametrallado de los tiempos presentes, estos son algunos intentos.» -Leila Guerriero

ENGLISH DESCRIPTION

Spanning politics and art, music and baseball, Cuba on the Verge is a timely look at a society’s profound transformation—from inside and out

Change looms in Cuba.

Just ninety miles from United States shores yet inaccessible to most Americans until recently, Cuba fascinates as much as it confounds. Images of the Buena Vista Social Club, wild nights at the Tropicana, classic cars, and bearded rebels clinching cigars only scrape the surface of Cuba’s complex history and legacy. As the US and Cuba move toward the normalization of diplomatic relations after an epic fifty-six-year standoff, we find ourselves face-to-face with one of the few places in the world that has been off limits to most Americans. We know that Cuba is changing, but from what and into what? And what does this change mean for the Cuban people as well as for the rest of the world?

Standing on both sides of the divide, twelve of our most celebrated writers investigate this period of momentous transition in Cuba on the Verge. These essays span the spectrum, from Carlos Manuel Álvarez’s story of being among the last generation of Cubans to be raised under Fidel Castro to Patricia Engel’s look at how Cuba’s capital has changed through her years of riding across it with her taxi driver friend; from The New Yorker’s Jon Lee Anderson (who traveled with President Obama on the first trip to Cuba by an American president since the twenties) on being a foreigner in Cuba during the Special Period to Francisco Goldman on the Tropicana, then and now, to Leonardo Padura on the religion that is Cuban baseball.

Cuba on the Verge is the definitive account of—and a unique glimpse at—a moment of upheaval and reinvention whose effects promise to reverberate across years and nations.