Product Description

Pedro Juan used to be a reporter in Havana, but as life in Cuba and his own life begin to collapse around him, he gives up the farce of a daily job, and begins to "train himself to take nothing seriously". His training involves lots of sex, drugs, rum, jazz, beat literature and street philosophy.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1034325 in Books
• Published on: 2002-02-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 400 pages

Customer Reviews

astounding
From the first page this book sucks you in to a whirlpool of sleaze and depravity that leaves you reeling. It is a tale consisting entirely of stolen moments and passing encounters, reading like a modern On The Road and planting the reader firmly in the tropical poverty stricken centre of Cuba, complete with all the sights, smells and sounds of a struggling third world capital city.

I found this book absolutely exhilarating and would recommend it to anyone interested in the human effects of poverty. Although it is at times coarse and some may consider it vulgar this is exactly where its strength lies, in its ability to completely humanize the effects of social and economic phenomena that we all know about, taking them out of an intellectual and even ethical/moral context and placing them starkly in the realms of experience.

It is inspiring, beautifully written and impossible to put down.

A page-turning treat
Compiled in short, unrelated, single-subject chapter form Guiterrez's book of his life on and around the streets of Cuba is as compelling and engrossing a book as I've read in a long time. He documents the mini-adventures and everyday people he undertakes them with with a frank emotion and colourful prose that I've not read since Orwell, and found just as attractive and personal. There are no punches pulled in the subject matter either which, considering the social, political and economic climates of Cuba throughout the early 90's, means that you are bombarded with everything from poverty, rape, murder, disease and despair, but Guiterrez infuses everything with such humour and compassion, and illustrates the people and places with such a vitality that all the horrors of the effects of Castro's regime and the USA's embargo's are absorbed into the everyday. A truly excellent portrayal of an extraordinary time and place.

Real life in Havana
I lived in Havana from 1993 to 2000, I was a freelance press photographer. This book reminds so much of that time. Of course the book deals with Havana's low life.... .
No book I have ever read captures the spirit of Cuban street life as this one does.
Reccomended 100%