Cuban Palimpsests

Four decades ago, the Cuban revolution captured the world’s attention and imagination. Within Cuba, the state developed a strictly defined national and collective memory that led directly from a colonial past to a utopian future, but this narrative came to a halt in the early 1990s. The collapse of Cuba’s sponsor, the Soviet Union, and the end of the Cold War preceded the so- called Special Period in Times of Peace, a euphemistic phrase that masked the genuine anxiety shared by leaders and people about the nation’s future. Jose Quiroga explores the sites, both physical and imaginative, where memory bears upon Cuba’s collective history in ways that illuminate this extended moment of uncertainty.