Cuba - The Land of Miracles

£8.99

Stephen Smith ponders the paradox that is Cuba. His aim is an interview with Fidel Castro, but the path to this is a long and meandering one. After settling into a small flat in Havana he sets out to explore and understand Castro's Cuba - its people, religions, cults, nightlife, sex life and aspirations for the future.

For a growing number of British holidaymakers, Cuba is a Caribbean paradise, but it is also a land of cutbacks and economic instability. Stephen Smith comes to live on the island, and his search for the real Cuba inevitably weaves through his search for Fidel Castro too. Before meeting his quarry, Smith travels extensively through the 'land of miracles' in an old American automobile. His highly-personalised account features a bloody initiation into a voodoo- like cult, dining on giant rat, and checking into the Love Hotel. And he goes on manoeuvres in the Everglades with armed, but not especially competent, Cuban exiles dreaming of a second Bay of Pigs.

With disarming wit and considerable insight, Stephen Smith investigates a country where communism and voodoo coexist, and where the influence of its leader of forty years continues to throw a long shadow. What is most refreshing about Stephen Smith's book is that politics takes a back seat to the individual stories about the people and everyday life in Cuba.