Customer Reviews

Como Eramos y Por Que Nos fuimos (Spanish Edition)

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Although this book emphasizes sports events, it provides a portrait of Cuban society before the Castro dictatorship. It shows that it worked efficiently to produce understanding and cohesiveness among the different classes. The author brings into his personal vignettes many important personalities. Many of them later became leaders in the communist regime instituted in 1959, including Castro himself. A number of important events occurring during the Batista years are recounted, based on intimate knowledge of the participants by the writer. The book is written in a lively colloquial style, and charms the reader to finish it in one sitting.

Far and away the most affecting memoir yet written of Cuba before the coming of Fidel Castro -- of the wildness, the warmth, the sense of humor, and the all-around pleasure that came with being Cuban until the Revolution put a stop to all that, in one fell swoop forty years ago, for political reasons that have still not been honestly articulated.

If you lived in Havana anytime between 1941 and 1961, this book will warm you heart. If you are just curious about life in Havana, you will not find a better source. I may have been reading a book, but I felt I was conversing with a good friend. His writing is clear and reaches the reader with different emotions. Sometimes he comforts as he narrates the security, peace and happines, that sports and friends brought to our lives. Other times, he shares the uncertainty and sometimes fear that came with political upheaval. His anecdotes are his, but they move in phase with the anecdotes of many others.

This book is particularly satisfying to me. I was born in Havana in 1957 and for 13 years a lived block from Vedado Tennis Club. Carlos Ordonez explains as well as anyone why we left!

If you have been in Havana or are interested in Cuba this is a must in your Library.