Un libro de cronicas cubanas de la mano de doce de los mas prestigiosos periodistas y escritores de nuestro tiempo que abarca politica y arte, musica y beisbol, presente y pasado, y nos ofrecen una excepcional instantanea 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 facilmente: donde. Todo el mundo sabe mas o menos donde queda Cuba. Para las demas: ‘que es Cuba, quienes son los cubanos, como es Cuba, cuando comenzo Cuba a ser lo que es, por que Cuba es como es’, y diversas variaciones y combinaciones de lo mismo no solo no hay respuestas faciles sino que cada quien parece tener las suyas.
Los doce textos que componen este libro procuran alejarse de los reduccionismos mas topicos y contar el pais desde el territorio mas peligroso, y por lo mismo mas interesante, de la duda y la contradiccion. Contar Cuba -como contar el desembarco en Normandia o la caida del Muro de Berlin- es contar la Historia en mayusculas: 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 Alvarez’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.
