Cubans - Lynn Geldof

Set thirty years after the onset of Castro's revolution, this book looks at the author's three years in Havana, between 1985 and 1989, as she sought out a diverse range of individuals through whom Cuba could be revealed on its own terms. Those who stayed in Cuba and those who left, the optimistic, the disillusioned and, in view of the present climate in Eastern Europe, the anxious. Among those interviewed are a pre-revolutionary socialite who is proud of her role in the new society, a hotel worker who recalls the days of the Mafia, a veteran of the Angola campaign, a communist nurse, a practitioner of the Afro-Cuban religious cult of Santeria and a gay black.;Lynn Geldof then interviews a selection of the immigrants who settled in the US. Included amongst the immigrants are the wealthiest who fled with the rise of Castro in 1959, the second wave of professionals and entrepreneurs who consolidated an anti-communist power-base in Miami and the Mariel Boat Lift exiles. The final section of this book looks at the implications of Soviet reforms for Cuba's future. Rafael Hernandez assesses the changing trade relationship with the USSR, Wayne Smith pinpoints blind spots in George Bush's refusal to open meaningful discussions with Castro and Jorge Dominguez considers Cuban youth's anti-revolutionary consumerist backlash, current censorship and the great changes that may lie ahead.;Lynn Geldof is a journalist living in Dublin.