10 books about Cuba

Doctor Luis Barreras, nicknamed "Wichi," encounters brutality following Batista's 1952 coup. While practicing hematology and raising three children in suburban Havana, he attempts to shield them from growing political unrest and violence that culminate in a Revolution with Fidel Castro seizing power in 1959. Religious persecution, loss of freedom, senseless killings, and government takeover of his medical practice make matters intolerable for Barreras. "If Batista was a canker sore, Fidel is the plague." How will he and his family endure the affliction?KILLING MY CUBA is a historical fiction novel that features the life and customs of the middle-class Barreras family, their relatives, and friends during 1949-1961. An undertone of the story is the foreboding prediction of Cuba's future Wichi hears early in the book, and it continues to prey on his mind. As his medical practice dwindles, his personal involvement in the horrific consequences of the Cuban Revolution increases.

Modern Cuba comes alive in a vibrant portrait of a group of families's varied journeys in one community over the last twenty years. Cubans today, most of whom have lived their entire lives under the Castro regime, are hesitantly embracing the future. In his new book, Anthony DePalma, a veteran reporter with years of experience in Cuba, focuses on a neighborhood across the harbor from Old Havana to dramatize the optimism as well as the enormous challenges that Cubans face: a moving snapshot of Cuba with all its contradictions as the new regime opens the gate to the capitalism that Fidel railed against for so long. In Guanabacoa, longtime residents prove enterprising in the extreme. Scrounging materials in the black market, Cary Luisa Limonta Ewen has started her own small manufacturing business, a surprising turn for a former ranking member of the Communist Party. Her good friend Lili, a loyal Communist, heads the neighborhood's watchdog revolutionary committee. Artist Arturo Montoto, who had long lived and worked in Mexico, moved back to Cuba when he saw improving conditions but complains like any artist about recognition. In stark contrast, Jorge García lives in Miami and continues to seek justice for the sinking of a tugboat full of refugees, a tragedy that claimed the lives of his son, grandson, and twelve other family members, a massacre for which the government denies any role. In The Cubans, many patriots face one new question: is their loyalty to the revolution, or to their country? As people try to navigate their new reality, Cuba has become an improvised country, an old machine kept running with equal measures of ingenuity and desperation. A new kind of revolutionary spirit thrives beneath the conformity of a half century of totalitarian rule. And over all of this looms the United States, with its unpredictable policies, which warmed towards its neighbor under one administration but whose policies have now taken on a chill reminiscent of the Cold War.

Havana, 1958. The daughter of a sugar baron, nineteen-year-old Elisa Perez is part of Cuba's high society, where she is largely sheltered from the country's growing political unrest - until she embarks on a clandestine affair with a passionate revolutionary... Miami, 2017. Freelance writer Marisol Ferrera grew up hearing romantic stories of Cuba from her late grandmother Elisa, who was forced to flee with her family during the revolution. Elisa's last wish was for Marisol to scatter her ashes in the country of her birth...

Although separated by continents and decades, Josef, a Jewish boy livng in 1930s Nazi Germany; Isabel, a Cuban girl trying to escape the riots and unrest plaguing her country in 1994; and Mahmoud, a Syrian boy in 2015 whose homeland is torn apart by violence and destruction, embark on harrowing journeys in search of refuge, discovering shocking connections that tie their stories together.

The Cuban Revolution took everything from Beatriz Perez. Recruited by the CIA to infiltrate Fidel Castro's inner circle and pulled into the dangerous world of espionage, Beatriz is consumed by her quest for revenge. As the Cold War swells over the Florida Strait, Beatriz is caught between the clash of Cuban-American politics and the perils of a forbidden affair with a powerful man. When tides of history threaten everything she has fought for, she must make a choice between her past and future, and the wrong move could cost Beatriz everything - including the man who has stolen her heart.

Un viaje al corazón de la Cuba contemporánea que convoca a los fantasmas del oscuro pasado revolucionario de la isla. Por escribir un poema a los dieciocho años en Cuba, Néstor Díaz de Villegas fue acusado por la Seguridad del Estado de ser un "diversionista ideológico" y condenado a seis años en un campo de trabajos forzados, de donde saldrá en 1979 rumbo a Miami. Treinta y siete años después, el autor regresa a la isla con la perspicacia de un periodista experimentado. Tras la reanudación de las relaciones diplomáticas entre los Estados Unidos y Cuba, Néstor y su esposa se aventuran en la reconstrucción de una antigua casa familiar en La Habana, una tarea que se convierte en metáfora de la restauración de una nación en quiebra. Con su infancia cubana como fantasmal telón de fondo, Díaz de Villegas teje un tapiz de disidentes y buscavidas, parientes perdidos y amigos nuevos, viviendas en ruinas y sórdidos palacios. Meditación sobre la vida y la muerte, extravagante cuaderno de viaje, tratado político y narración histórica, De dónde son los gusanos es también la crónica del lento florecer de un nuevo espíritu emprendedor en Cuba, así como de la colaboración entre expatriados y residentes de la isla en la causa común de redimir al país de los estragos del totalitarismo.

Have you ever been on an island? What would it be like to live on one? Take a trip to tropical Cuba and learn about the history and culture of this Caribbean country.