Alumni Travel Reading 2018-2019: Cuba: Holguin, Santiago de Cuba, and Havana

For assessments of the Cuban Revolution and Cuba’s political situation in the wider world, popular recent accounts include Samuel Farber’s book. His critical evaluation comes from a democratic socialist viewpoint. His account is critical, yet sympathetic, and lies very much in the middle between those held by the enemies and apologists of the Cuban government.

Sweig frames her book in a question-and-answer format. Also a critical, yet sympathetic, account, her book lies very much in the middle between those held by the enemies and apologists of the Cuban government.

An engaging, witty account of the people, customs, food, and culture of Cuba framed by a fascinating approach to travel. With only a folding bicycle and a towable suitcase, Australian Lynette Chiang spent three months touring Cuba, eshewing tourist hotels and typical iteneraries in favor of an unpredictable day-to-day existence among ordinary citizens. (From the publisher)
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Rosa Jordan introduces readers to Cubans in all walks of life, people whom she has met during travels around the island by bike, bus, plane, train, truck, and car. Familiar places like Havana and Varadero are viewed from unfamiliar angles and serve as starting points for adventures that began in 1996 and continue into the future. (From the Publisher)

A rambling odyssey set in the later days of the Castro regime, on the Cuban rail system. (From the Publisher)

Purchase this book from Amazon or borrow it from your local library.

The excellent journalist Alma Guillermoprieto has written a memoir of living in Cuba in 1970 during which time she was a dancer working with Cuban dance students.

"Havana" is part cultural history and part travelogue, with recipes, historic engravings, photographs, and author Kurlansky's own pen-and-ink drawings throughout.

This volume features previously unphotographed, but noteworthy midcentury architecture and interiors in Havana. The photographs, show examples from the Vedado neighborhood, the streets of Miramar, Central Havana, and Havana's Country Club Park area.

Covers architecture, interior design, and the visual arts.

More in the handsome coffee table vein.

Interpreting the present in light of the past, eleven renowned architects, historians, scholars, preservationists, and urban planners in Cuba and the United States provide a rigorous examination of Havana old and new that provokes exploration of the ways we look at all cities. (From the publisher)

Old Havana: Spirit of the Living City captures the architecture, people, and daily life of La Habana Vieja (Old Havana) through the lenses of two visionary photographers and colleagues, one American and the other Cuban. The photographer-authors document features of the oldest quarter in Cuba's capital city.

Profiles of fifty artists over fifty years, telling the story of modern Cuba through visual art the recent loosening of the U.S. embargo and Castro's opening up of state-regulated tourism has yielded a flurry of student programs, professional conferences, books, movies, and general enthusiasm in this country for all things Cuban. (From the Publisher)

Borrow it from your local library.

This volume presents 59 examples of contemporary Cuban art drawn from the distinguished collection of Howard and Patricia Farber (New York and Miami Beach). (From the Publisher)

A textually denser discussion of developments in contemporary Cuban art.

For a collection of readings there is this heavy weight 723 page volume, the Cuban entry in the excellent Duke University Press “Latin American Readers” series of documentary histories. It covers Cuban history far back before 1959.

A more current focus comes from this book, which features primarily foreign, mostly American, writers (e.g., Paco Ignacio Taibo II, Christopher Hitchens) on a variety of topics.

Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist, Hijuelos, writes about the people and places that have influenced his life and, in turn, his literature. Hijuelos visits Holguín in the 1950s with his family and compares it to Havana.

Cuban Landscapes explores streetscapes, fields, beaches, rural settlements; artifacts of commerce; government buildings, and national landmarks. Holguín and Santiago de Cuba are featured along with other regions of Cuba.

Examins the religious lives of santeros in Santiago de Cuba.
Link to a table of contents