Spanning politics and art, music and baseball, Cuba on the Verge is a timely look at a society's profound transformation--from inside and out

Change looms in Cuba.

Just ninety miles from United States shores yet inaccessible to most Americans until recently, Cuba fascinates as much as it confounds. Images of the Buena Vista Social Club, wild nights at the Tropicana, classic cars, and bearded rebels clinching cigars only scrape the surface of Cuba's complex history and legacy. As the US and Cuba move toward the normalization of diplomatic relations after an epic fifty-six-year standoff, we find ourselves face-to-face with one of the few places in the world that has been off limits to most Americans. We know that Cuba is changing, but from what and into what? And what does this change mean for the Cuban people as well as for the rest of the world?

Standing on both sides of the divide, twelve of our most celebrated writers investigate this period of momentous transition in Cuba on the Verge. These essays span the spectrum, from Carlos Manuel lvarez's story of being among the last generation of Cubans to be raised under Fidel Castro to Patricia Engel's look at how Cuba's capital has changed through her years of riding across it with her taxi driver friend; from The New Yorker's Jon Lee Anderson (who traveled with President Obama on the first trip to Cuba by an American president since the twenties) on being a foreigner in Cuba during the Special Period to Francisco Goldman on the Tropicana, then and now, to Leonardo Padura on the religion that is Cuban baseball.

Cuba on the Verge is the definitive account of--and a unique glimpse at--a moment of upheaval and reinvention whose effects promise to reverberate across years and nations.

Edición revisada y ampliada del libro de crónicas de una de las mejores periodistas en español

«El periodismo puede, y debe, echar mano de todos los recursos de la narrativa para crear un destilado, en lo posible, perfecto: la esencia de la esencia de la realidad.

Una mujer capaz de asesinar a tres amigas poniéndoles cianuro en la taza de té, otra que mató a su hija minutos después de parirla, un mago al que le falta una mano, un grupo de rock cuyo integrante más famoso tiene síndrome de Down, un lustrabotas que acabó convirtiéndose en una figura imprescindible de la música en Hispanoamérica. Como asegura la autora, no hay nada «más sexy, feroz, desopilante, ambiguo, tétrico o hermoso que la realidad.

En esta edición revisada y ampliada de Frutos extraños Leila Guerriero nos descubre la cara más sensible, vigorosa y palpitante de una profesión que atraviesa tiempos difíciles y obra el milagro de hacernos creer de nuevo en el oficio de periodista. Las crónicas recogidas en este libro, escritas entre los años 2001 y 2019, constituyen una lección magistral de periodismo, muestran el mundo desde una perspectiva única, intensa y diferente, y tienen la capacidad de noquear al lector.

ENGLISH DESCRIPTION

Revised and expanded edition of the collected columns from one of the best Spanish-language journalists

Journalism can, and should, use all narrative resources to create a perfect distillate, if possible: the essence of the essence of reality.

A woman capable of murdering three friends by putting cyanide in a teacup, another who killed her daughter minutes after giving birth, a magician who is missing a hand, a rock group whose most famous member has Down syndrome, a shoeshine boy who ended up becoming an essential Latin American music figure. As the author asserts, there is nothing sexier, fiercer, more outrageous, ambiguous, gloomy, or beautiful than reality.

In this revised and expanded edition of Strange Fruits, Leila Guerriero reveals the most sensitive, vigorous, and pulsating face of a profession that is going through difficult times and works the miracle of making us believe in the journalism profession again. The columns collected in this book, written between the years 2001 and 2019, constitute a masterful lesson in journalism, show the world from a unique, intense and distinctive perspective, and have the ability to knock the reader out.

Every year, at the height of summer, the remote Argentine village of Laborde holds the national malambo contest. Centuries-old, this shatteringly demanding traditional gaucho dance is governed by the most rigid rules. And this festival has one stipulation that makes it unique: the malambo is danced for up to five minutes. That may seem like nothing, but consider the world record for the hundred-meter dash is 9.58 seconds. The dance contest is an obsession for countless young men, who sacrifice their bodies and money as they strive to become the champion, knowing that if they win--in order to safeguard the title's prestige--they can never compete again. When Leila Guerriero traveled to Laborde, one dancer's performance took her breath away, and she spent a year following him as he prepared for the next festival. The result is this superlative piece of journalism, told with tremendous economy and power.

An Argentinian epic about dance

This is the story of a man who took part in a dance contest. It is thus that Argentine journalist and author Leila Guerriero opens her book. It tells the most difficult of all epic stories: that of the common man.

This is an electrifying work that spans the genres of journalism and fiction. It tells a moving and strangely intimate story about malambo, a traditional dance of the Argentine gauchos, and about the Malambo Festival of Laborde in the southeast of the Argentinian province of Córdoba. It is also about Rodolfo González Alcántara, who won the dance competition in 2012.

Leila Guerriero is a gifted chronicler. Her internationally acclaimed work A Simple Story was published in Spanish in 2013 and in English in 2017, and now appears in German for the first time, in a translation by Angelica Ammar.

First German translation of the impressive chronicle

A foray through life, suffering, sacrifice, silent despair, the dread of loss, solidarity, and glory. (El País)

[a] level of excellence: [...] rigorous work, exhaustive research (Mario Vargas Llosa)