Havana without Makeup (eBook)

Inside the Soul of the City

Herman Portocarero (Autor)

Joaquin Portocarero (Fotograf)

eBook Download: EPUB

2017
248 Seiten
Turtle Point Press (Verlag)
978-1-933527-92-5 (ISBN)

Infos

A diplomat and writer with decades of unparalleled knowledge delivers an intimate, unconventional portrait: the single must-read book about Cuba.

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Havana without Makeup is the ultimate insiders view of Havana, a wide-ranging exploration of its complex facets as seen by few. Its aim is to capture the soul of a city and a society that have evolved on their own terms at the moment before they face inevitable transformations.Opening on the eve of the announcement of reconciliation between the U.S. and Cuba, the book then looks back at the cultural, political, economic, and religious influences that led up to this historic moment and beyond. Readers are led by a brilliant renaissance man and writer who has been at the vanguard of the citys struggles for more than twenty years. Portocareros anti-tourist guide to Havana examines the built environment of the most sensual ruin on the planet: why are large parts of the city so neglected, and what changes may we see over the coming years? Examining all things Cubania--racial issues, la revolucin, baseball, Hemingway, communism, synagogues, Santeria, Cimarron culture, and much more--Portocarero overturns every stone in his endeavor to bring us inside the city he loves.Illustrated with original photographs, this is a unique and essential account of Havanas history, its present, and what its future may hold.Herman Portocarero is a Belgian-born writer and diplomat of Spanish and Portuguese descent. He has published more than twenty works of fiction and nonfiction, including the Hercule Poirot Prize-winning crime novel New Yorkse Nachten (New York Nights). He is presently the European Union ambassador to Cuba.

Autor

lt;div>Herman Portocarero is a European diplomat and writer, born in Antwerp, Belgium, of Spanish ancestry. He is currently the ambassador of the European Union in Havana, after a career spent between New York and the Caribbean. He was previously ambassador of his native country in Cuba and Jamaica, where he also lived and worked as a much younger diplomat.
Thanks to his professional trajectory, he has been familiar with the region since the 1980s and with Cuba since 1995. He has unparalleled knowledge and understanding of Cuban history, politics, and society, and of the relationship between Cuba, the Caribbean, and the United States.
Portocarero has published over twenty works of fiction and nonfiction in Europe. He authored the libretto for the oratorio Flamma Flamma by composer Nicholas Lens (available on Sony Masterworks), a monumental work popular with audiences of neo-classical music. He is also a gifted public speaker, and was one of the pioneers to launch TED talks in Havana in 2014.
His Havana without Makeup is the crowning achievement of a career in writing pursued in parallel with his diplomatic activities. He mixes narrative skills and a novelist’s feeling for people and places, with tireless searches for the truth behind the façade. Applied to Havana, a city he acknowledges to be in love with, this results in a kaleidoscopic visit full of unexpected angles and insights.