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

La Revolución

Cuba since the Revolution Of 1959: A Critical Assessment by Samuel Farber
Call Number: F1788 .F326 2011
ISBN: 9781608461394
Publication Date: 2011
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.
Cuba: What Everyone Needs to Know by Julia E. Sweig
Call Number: F1788 .S955 2009
ISBN: 9780195383805
Publication Date: 2009
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.

Cathedral in Havana. Courtesy of commons.wikimedia.org.

Travel & Memoir

The Handsomest Man in Cuba: An Escapade by Lynette Chiang
Call Number: F1765.3 .C45 2007
ISBN: 9780762743902
Publication Date: 2007
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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Cuba Unspun by Rosa Jordan; CA
Call Number: F1765.3 J67 2012
ISBN: 0889822891
Publication Date: 2012
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)
Slow Train to Guantanamo: A Rail Odyssey through Cuba in the Last Days of the Castros by Peter Millar
Call Number: Van Pelt Library F1765.3 .M55 2013
ISBN: 1908129506
Publication Date: 2013
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.
Dancing with Cuba: A Memoir of the Revolution by Alma Guillermoprieto
Call Number: Van Pelt Library F1765.3 .G85 2004
ISBN: 0375420932
Publication Date: 2004
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.

Cuban History & Culture

The Cuba Reader by Aviva Chomsky
Call Number: Van Pelt Library F1776 .C85 2003
ISBN: 0822331845
Publication Date: 2004
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.
Inside Cuba: The History, Culture, and Politics of an Outlaw Nation by John Miller
Call Number: F1758 .I57 2003
ISBN: 1569244847
Publication Date: 2003
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.

Cuba: Holguin, Santiago de Cuba, and Havana

There has been plenty to read about Cuba ever since getting there became more difficult for Americans. Here are a few suggestions of works published in the new century that can provide some context for the first-time visitor.

Old Square in Havanna. Courtesy of commons.wikimedia.org.

Bibliographer

Selected and Annotated By:

Joseph Holub

Librarian for Spain, Portugal, and Latin America

holub@pobox.upenn.edu

For more information about this and other excursions, please visit the Penn Alumni Travel Webpage.

Havana

Havana: A Subtropical Delirium by Mark Kurlansky
Call Number: Van Pelt Library F1799.H35 K87 2017
ISBN: 9781632863911
Publication Date: 2017
"Havana" is part cultural history and part travelogue, with recipes, historic engravings, photographs, and author Kurlansky's own pen-and-ink drawings throughout.
Havana Modern: 20th-century Architecture and Interiors by Michael Connors; Ricardo Porro (Foreword by); Nestore Martinengo (Photographer)
Call Number: Fine Arts Library NA803 .C664 2014
ISBN: 9780847843466
Publication Date: 2014
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.
Havana Deco by Alejandro G. Alonso; Pedro Contreras; Martino Fagiuoli
Call Number: N6603.5.A78 A4613 2007
ISBN: 0393732320
Publication Date: 2007
Covers architecture, interior design, and the visual arts.
Great Houses of Havana: A Century of Architecture and Design by Hermes Mallea
Call Number: Fine Arts Library NA7276.H38 M35 2011
ISBN: 1580932886
Publication Date: 2011
More in the handsome coffee table vein.
Havana Revisited: An Architectural Heritage by Cathryn Griffith
Call Number: Fine Arts Library NA804.H3 G75 2010
ISBN: 0393732843
Publication Date: 2010
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)
La Habana Vieja: Old Havana: Spirit of the Living City by Chip Cooper
Call Number: Van Pelt Library F1799.H343 C66 2012
ISBN: 9780817317621
Publication Date: 2012
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.

Art

Cuba: Arte Contemporáneo by Andreas Winkler; Sebastiaan A. C. Berger
Call Number: Fine Arts Library N6603 .C83 2012
ISBN: 1590207769
Publication Date: 2012
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)
Without Masks: Contemporary Afro-Cuban Art: The Von Christierson Collection by Orlando Hernández
Call Number: Fine Arts Library N6603 .H47 2010
ISBN: 0620471689
Publication Date: 2010
Borrow it from your local library.
Cuba Avant-Garde: Contemporary Cuban Art from the Farber Collection by Magda Gonzalez-Mora Alfonso
Call Number: Fine Arts Library N6603.2 .M46 2007
ISBN: 0976255243
Publication Date: 2007
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)
To and from Utopia in the New Cuban Art by Rachel Weiss
Call Number: Fine Arts Library N6603.2 .W45 2011
ISBN: 081666515X
Publication Date: 2011
A textually denser discussion of developments in contemporary Cuban art.

Classic cars in Havana. Courtesy of commons.wikimedia.org.

Holguin

Photo of Santiago de Cuba by David Bacon. Used under a Creative Commons license

"Holguin" Photo by Johan Siegers. Used under a Creative Commons license

Thoughts Without Cigarettes: A Memoir by Óscar Hijuelos
Call Number: Van Pelt Library PS3558.I376 Z46 2011
ISBN: 9781592406296
Publication Date: 2011
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.

New Reports of Cave Art in Gibara, Holguín
In September 2012, in the area of Gibara, north of the province of Holguín, new pictographs and petroglyphs were found in two caves there: the Curva de la Campana cave, and the Los Panaderos cave. In the first, a pictogram had been reported some years back by the speleological group Felipe Poey, and now, with the recent studies carried out in said cave, seven new paintings were located, in addition to two petroglyphs. In the second cave no rock art had been found before, so this is a new locality.
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The Article is in Spanish with a few illustrations
La Ciudad de Holguín: en Oriente Ciudades, Pueblos y Lugares de Cuba
Website in Spanish featuring Holguín, but with many links to information more broadly about cities and cultural aspects of Cuba

Cuban Landscapes: Heritage, Memory, and Place by Joseph L. Scarpaci
Call Number: Van Pelt Libraries F1760.9 .S33 2009
ISBN: 9781606233238
Publication Date: 2009
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.
Ritual, Discourse, and Community in Cuban Santeria: Speaking a Sacred World by Kristina Wirtz
Call Number: Van Pelt Library BL2532.S3 W57 2007
ISBN: 9780813030647
Publication Date: 2007
Examins the religious lives of santeros in Santiago de Cuba.
Link to a table of contents

Archaeological Collaboration with Department of Archaeology, Holguín
National award of the Academy of Sciences of Cuba 2013 for Dr. Roberto Valcárcel Rojas and international team

From indigenous space to colonial setting. Archaeological investigations at El Chorro de Maita in Cuba wins prestigious prize.
History of Santiago de Cuba
Links to information about parks, architecture, geography, people, and practices