Cuba Then, Cuba Now

From the moment Columbus gazed out from his Santa Maria and hailed ‘the most beautiful land human eyes have seen’, Cuba has been a magnet for fantasies – and for historic drama. In recent years, Fidel Castro’s longtime communist feif has been roiled by new momentous shifts – Castro’s death; détente with the United States; the ascent of a new leader in Havana. Now comes an essential and timely portrait of Cuba from one of the island’s leading chroniclers.

Cuba Then, Cuba Now offers selected chapters from Island People, Joshua Jelly-Schapiro’s magnum opus on the history and cultures of the Caribbean; they come with a new introduction and conclusion, drawn from his reporting from Cuba for The New Yorker and the New York Review of Books, to bring the story up to date. It is essential reading for anyone planning to visit Cuba, or dreaming of doing so.