Richard Hollis and JS Tennant. Cuba ’62

This time-travel, mood-evoking, eye-enticing account of Cuba in 1962 brings together black-and-white photographs, diaries, and other texts from that era, enriched by selections from Tomás Gutiérrez Alea's masterful film, Memorias del Subdesarrollo, and color photographs taken in 2010.The "attempt to build a new society made me curious", Richard Hollis writes in this book's afterword, explaining why he went to Cuba in 1962 and took photographs; J.S. Tennant took more photos in 2010.Altogether, 50 photos appear in the book, nearly one on every other page.Savor the photos -teenage women teaching adults how to read, truckloads of cane-cutting urbanites, imposing views of the City of Havana juxtaposed to decaying apartment buildings, posters, cartoons, headlines, soldiers, monuments from 1962 and from decades later, vibrant mass meetings highlighting Fidel Castro's speaking to ready a nation for the looming threat of the 1962 missile crisis.The photos, along with excerpts from Hollis' 1962 letters and diary as well as selections from Juan Goytisolo's contemporaneous diary, and the effective deployment of Gutiérrez Alea's film protagonist, played admirably by Sergio Corrieri, convey well the feelings and fears of that year, including its foodrationing challenges, the hopes for a better future with revolutionary commitment, and altogether the dramatic experiences of that moment in Cuba's history.Some of the text is evocative of that era -Cubans complaining that the Soviets did not use deodorant (p.14) or the requisitioning of air conditioners from local brothels in eastern Cuba to cool liquid fuel and Soviet nuclear warheads.Some is aptly informative, telling readers that Fidel Castro urged

Ancient history · Cuban History and Society · History