The Cubans

The Cubans is a revelatory account of life in one of the most restrictive, isolated and misunderstood places in the world.

In this pioneering work of life-writing and reportage, Anthony DePalma reconstructs the interwoven stories of five ordinary citizens and their families to bring the true story of the Cuban people the world.

Through their extraordinary journeys, from Castro’s heyday, through the devastation of post-Soviet collapse, to the false dawn of recent years, we witness the drama and hardships of life across six decades of socialist state control – where even today the government decides what work you can do and where you live; where food is rationed, basic medicines are unavailable, buildings collapse and rubbish goes uncollected; where millions break the law every day simply to get by.

Many celebrate Cuba, one of the world’s five remaining communist countries, for bravely holding out against the rampant capitalism of the West. The Cubans lays bare the more complex reality, showing how the revolution that once inspired its people has since tested their faith with tragedy and disillusionment, and revealing the daily acts of heroism and the endlessly adaptive resilience that are required of them to survive.

'DePalma’s fictionlike narrative moves thematically (Realization, Reconciliation, etc.), and the author is especially good at revealing the stunning adaptability of a people thwarted at seemingly every turn. An obvious labor of love, years in the making, featuring meticulous research and an elegant narrative style.'
Kirkus Reviews (*starred review*)

'A sensitive portrait… In impressively specific detail, DePalma captures the suffering and resilience of ordinary Cubans caught between the political posturing of their government and the U.S. Readers will savor this intimate, eye-opening account.'
Publishers Weekly

'A bracing insight into human perseverance.'
Booklist

'For all that’s been written about revolutionary Cuba, I know of no book that more vividly describes the interior of the contemporary Cuban experience. The ordinary people who share their struggles with Anthony DePalma have seen the “bright promise” of revolution give way to the “dingy hardship” of real life. DePalma strips the Cuba story of its shabby ideological pretensions, but beneath the surface finds Cubans who still care for each other and whose resilience defines a patriotism all its own.'
Tom Gjelten, author of Bacardi and the Long Fight for Cuba

'Finally, a book not about Fidel, Raúl, or Ché Guevara, but about Cary, Pipo, Oscar, and other ordinary Cubans who tell not the history we have been fed for years but the real, remarkable, and complicated stories of people living with what Anthony DePalma aptly describes as the ‘interminable revolution.’ DePalma has surely become the best chronicler of Cuba today.'
Mirta Ojito, author of Finding Mañana: A Memoir of a Cuban Exodus

'Amid all the overnight experts on Cuba who rarely venture beyond Havana, Anthony DePalma stands apart, offering a profound and eloquent book that is destined to become a classic. With his astute journalist’s eye and an open heart, DePalma earned the trust of cubanas and cubanos as few outsiders have. An essential testimony as Cuba moves into an uncertain future.'
Ruth Behar, author of An Island Called Home: Returning to Jewish Cuba

'Indispensable for anyone trying to understand the warmth, spirit and 'national insanity' of the Cuban people and all they have been through over the last 60 years. It reads like a historical novel, with compelling characters, hurricanes and the murder of children on the open seas. But this balanced, non-ideological and meticulously-reported story is all true.'
Jonathan Alter, author of The Center Holds: Obama and His Enemies

'If you want to know what the real Cuba is like for its natives—as opposed to the synthetic Cuba experienced by most tourists—this book will take you there, to that unique labyrinth of ruins where truth is as elusive as comfort or the bare necessities of life. Unflinchingly objective, yet suffused with poetic empathy for the complex characters whose lives it chronicles, Anthony DePalma’s narrative reads like the best of novels. Uplifting and devastating at the same time.'
Carlos Eire, author of Waiting for Snow in Havana

'Forget the travel books that guide your wanderlust to the best mojito bars and cigar shops in Cuba. Forget the academic history tomes that leave you heartlessly informed. Forget the coffee table books of glossy photos that vicariously play on your romantic notion of Havana’s ruins. Forget the media that polarizes your perception of the island through an anachronistic liberal or conservative lens. If you honestly want to feel Cuba—not just understand it—then read The Cubans. Finally, a book that demystifies Cuba through the brilliance of DePalma, who knows that a nation is merely an idea subject to infinite abstraction, until it is grounded in the lives of its people and their rich and varied stories that are sadly—and almost inevitably—lost in the crosshairs of ideology and crossfire of power. With the eye of a poet, the perceptiveness of an ethnographer, and the heart of an emotional historian, DePalma renders Cuba through the spirit of Cubans as they have always been, as they are now, and as they will always be, regardless.'
Richard Blanco, Presidential Inaugural Poet, author of How to Love a Country