An Innocent In Cuba

With An Innocent in Ireland (1995), David McFadden began his eccentric journeys to the heart of some of the world’s most unique island nations. Now McFadden rambles through the highs and lows of Cuba, home to cigars, Guantanamera, and of course Castro. The beautiful Caribbean landscape, along with Cuba’s rich history, culture, and uncertain future, lend themselves to the quirky eye and wry witticisms of our innocent Canadian guide. Poking into the nation’s many corners, McFadden offers a series of vignettes of the people, cities,villages, roads, and countryside of the island the author refers to as “the most famous little country in the world.” Warm and colourful, An Innocent in Cuba is a musical, sensuous, flirtatious, joyful tribute to the Cuban spirit in all its incarnations.

For more than two hundred years, Americans have imagined and described Cuba and its relationship to the United States by conjuring up a variety of striking images--Cuba as a woman, a neighbor, a ripe fruit, a child learning to ride a bicycle. Louis A. Perez Jr. offers a revealing history of these metaphorical and depictive motifs and discovers the powerful motives behind such characterizations of the island as they have persisted and changed since the early nineteenth century. Drawing on texts and visual images produced by Americans ranging from government officials, policy makers, and journalists to travelers, tourists, poets, and lyricists, Perez argues that these charged and coded images of persuasion and mediation were in service to America's imperial impulses over Cuba.

When writer David McFadden sets out on a tour of Ireland, he is determined to so do in a relatively innocent state. Using as a guide only In Search of Ireland, a 1930 title by travel writer H. V. Morton, he plans to follow the same route, to try to determine how things have changed and how they have remained the same. This he proceeds to do – at least at first. But soon he is wandering more and more erratically around the country, poking into any corner and musing over any sight that takes his fancy – from a cozy guest house in Kilcullen to the legendary Hill of Tara, from the south-coast pub run by twin sisters to the windswept reaches of the Ballaghbeama Gap. And increasingly he is drawn to the prehistoric monuments of ancient Ireland. As he goes, he records his very personal impressions in a clear-eyed and wryly humorous way. Wisely, McFadden also lets the many characters he meets speak for themselves; he loves a good chat and he gives ample space to the various loquacious barmen, shopkeepers, hoteliers, and passersby along the way. And of all the eccentric and appealing characters that he encounters, one of the most intriguing is his travelling companion, the mysterious Spanish chambermaid and poet Lourdes Brasil. Amusing, quirky, compassionate but unsentimental, An Innocent in Ireland is a treat for any armchair traveller.

From America’s number one Cuba reporter, PEN award–winning investigative journalist Ann Louise Bardach, comes the big book on Cuba we’ve all been waiting for. An incisive and spirited portrait of the twentieth century’s wiliest political survivor and his fiefdom, Cuba Confidential is the gripping story of the shattered families and warring personalities that lie at the heart of the forty-three-year standoff between Miami and Havana. Famous to many Americans for her cover stories and media appearances, Ann Louise Bardach has been covering Cuba for a decade. She’s talked to the crooks, spooks and politicians who have made history, and to their hired assassins and confidants. Based on exclusive interviews with Fidel Castro, his sister Juanita, his former brother-in-law Rafael Díaz-Balart, the family of Elián González, the friends and family of the legendary American fugitive Robert Vesco, the intrepid terrorist Luis Posada Carriles, and the inner circles of Jeb Bush and the late exile leader Jorge Mas Canosa, Cuba Confidential exposes the hardball take-no-prisoners tactics of the Cuban exile leadership, and its manipulation and exploitation by ten American presidents. Bardach homes in on Fidel Castro and his cronies, taking us closer than we’ve ever been—and on the militant exiles who have devoted their lives, with CIA connivance, to trying to eliminate him. From Calle Ocho to Juan Miguel González’s kitchen table in Cárdenas, from Guantánamo Bay to Union City to Washington, D.C., Ann Louise Bardach serves up an unforgettable portrait of Cuba and its exiles.

A childhood in a privileged household in 1950s Havana was joyous and cruel, like any other-but with certain differences. The neighbour's monkey was liable to escape and run across your roof. Surfing was conducted by driving cars across the breakwater. Lizards and firecrackers made frequent contact. Carlos Eire's childhood was a little different from most. His father was convinced he had been Louis XVI in a past life. At school, classmates with fathers in the Batista government were attended by chauffeurs and bodyguards. At a home crammed with artifacts and paintings, portraits of Jesus spoke to him in dreams and nightmares. Then, in January 1959, the world changes: Batista is suddenly gone, a cigar-smoking guerrilla has taken his place, and Christmas is cancelled. The echo of firing squads is everywhere. And, one by one, the author's schoolmates begin to disappear-spirited away to the United States. Carlos will end up there himself, without his parents, never to see his father again. Narrated with the urgency of a confession, WAITING FOR SNOW IN HAVANA is both an ode to a paradise lost and an exorcism. More than that, it captures the terrible beauty of those times in our lives when we are certain we have died-and then are somehow, miraculously, reborn.

Based on some of the author's and her husband's personal experiences, INNOCENT BETRAYAL explores the hidden currents of Cuban counterintelligence during the 1970s and 80s in a novel that will sweep you from the daily calamities of Cuban reality, the opulence of Havana's diplomatic corps, to the ruthlessness of the Cuban secret police. Betrayal and love intertwine in the hostile ambiance of an island torn by revolution. INNOCENT BETRAYAL is a story of love overcoming betrayal.

When Fidel Castro and his band of revolutionaries took over Cuba in 1958, they promised welfare and prosperity to the Cuban people. Dr. Julio Antonio del Marmols father, Leonardo, supported the revolution sopenly that he was often targeted by Gen. Fulgencio Batistas regime. Like so many others, hed been deceived to believe that Castro could be just like a certain artist depicted hima resurrected Christ. Following in his Fathers footsteps, Julio Antonio also waged a war for freedom, becoming a military leader at twelve years old. Castro, impressed with the youths maturity and eloquence, appointed him commander-in-chief of the Young Commandos, personally handing him a gun. But when Julio Antonio realized that the revolution had serious shortcomings, he converted himself into a spy and began stealing secrets from the regime. When he takes the first pictures of the Soviet nuclear missiles in Cuba, the world almost goes to war. Join a freedom fighter who barely escaped from the island as he recalls the early days of the revolution and stealing secrets in Cuba: Russian Roulette of the World.

Take a trip to the golden age of Havana in this gorgeously illustrated volume of vintage photographs, postcards, brochures, and other ephemera. Featuring hundreds of historic images and cultural artifacts, Havana Before Castro documents how the Cuban capital evolved from a Prohibition Era getaway destination to a heady blend of glittering nightclubs, outrageous cabarets, all-night bars, and backstreet brothels. Here, captured in one amazing book, is the drama, passion, intrigue, and opulence of a legendary city during its heyday—before the Castro regime took over and Americans were banned from travel to this tropical paradise. In chapters covering such topics as Cuban rum and cigars, the world-famous Tropicana Club, and Havana’s association with the mob, author Peter Moruzzi provides essential historical context for the many fascinating and evocative images.