The Cubans
Ordinary Lives in Extraordinary Times
- Published: 2 July 2020
- ISBN: 9781473554443
- Imprint: Vintage Digital
- Format: EBook
- Pages: 368
Think of this as an anti-Fidel corrective to the scores of volumes fixated on the ruler-for-life-force-of-nature-movie-star dictator
Washington Post Sunday
Vibrant and hugely enjoyable ... DePalma is a terrific reporter, with a novelist's eye for detail. He uses the extraordinary trust he has gained from his subjects to paint a vivid, deeply sympathetic picture of Cuban life, and the quiet fortitude of its people
Telegraph
Remarkably revealing ... [DePalma] renders a Cuba few tourists will ever see ... You won't forget these people soon, and you are bound to emerge from DePalma's bighearted account with a deeper understanding of a storied island
The New York Times
An immersive and compelling read ... DePalma wanted to 'reach beyond the myths, to show the real Cuba and the real Cubans who live there' ... In this, he has succeeded brilliantly
Literary Review
A moving and rich account ... DePalma's book is overflowing with warmth and humanity - much like the Cuban people
The Times
DePalma's perceptive portrait of the lives of ordinary citizens, their hopes and inevitable disillusionment after 60 years of revolution ... is a deeply reported ... account of Cuba's bittersweet realities
Financial Times
DePalma's page-turning story reveals the voices of ordinary Cubans living through the Castro Revolution's checkered 60-year run. His richly detailed eye-opener offers a front-row seat on the triumphs and tribulations of Guanabacoa families and roller-coasters with emotion through moments of love, humor, pain and horror - witness the haunting account of the sinking of the 13 de Marzo tugboat, and a devastating drastic measure taken for a father suffering dementia. Revealing and unputdownable.
Claire Boobbeyer