Cuba with its flamboyant style and rich culture, has provided the inspiration and setting for literature for decades. It has always been one of the most compelling places in the world, though perhaps never more so than now. Following Raúl Castro's resignation as President in 2018, the era of Castroism has come to an end, and the US-Cuba rapprochement has opened the country to a generation of Americans whose only previous exposure was through film and literature. The coming years will undoubtedly bring significant changes to a country that has in many ways been frozen in time.
Cuba: A Literary Guide for Travellers takes the literary-minded traveller (either in person or in an armchair) on a vivid and illuminating journey, retracing the footsteps of writers and artists who have lived and worked in, or been inspired by, the history and landscape of Cuba. This literary guide challenges some firmly-held Western assumptions about the country, and shines a light on one of the richest and most deeply embedded literary cultures in the world.

Mike Gonzalez is an historian, literary critic and is emeritus professor of Latin American Studies at the University of Glasgow. He writes extensively on Latin America and is the author of The Gathering of Voices: The Twentieth Century Poetry of Latin America, Che Guevara and the Cuban Revolution, Tango: Sex and Rhythm of the City, A Rebel's Guide to Marx and Barcelona: A Literary Guide for Travellers.

Introduction: The Pearl of the Caribbean
Cuba Finds Itself
Sugar and Cigars
A Nation of Slaves?
Oriente: The Wild East
Havana in the New Republic
Havana and the Revolution
The 'Special Period ': Culture and Scarcity
A Nation Divided
Bibliography
Some Bookshops
Index