An old Cuban tobacco farmer in the fields. - Contributed
AHH! CUBA! Long cigars and longer-living revolutionaries, vintage cars on the road and makeshift craft sailing treacherous seas to the Promised Land up north.
Positive or negative, the word 'Cuba' evokes myriad images and emotions and in Cuba, Portrait of An Island, loaded with pictures by Donald Nausbaum and graphic though concise text from Juliet Barclay, the images are clear and present, the emotions loving and lavish.
Capturing an island which has itself captured the imagination of the world in 92 pages is no small task (though as they are all colour photographs it is certainly a colourful one), but Nausbaum and Barclay certainly have a good go.
From the introduction, the target audience of the book and the sympathes of the writer are clear, as she refers to "the kindergarten political posing of their Neighbour to the North" and says "visitors to Havana arrive having flown in over the romantic night-time view of the sparkling harbour lights ...".
Accordingly, throughout the 10 chapters of Cuba, Portrait of An Island, the writing is of the 'take you there' variety, where history and a written tour are well combined.
Barclay writes of the most famous resort area "without a doubt, the most magical moment at Varadero is dawn, when the colour of the sky changes from deep blue to pearly grey to mauve top peach to lemon ..."; she gives a synopsis of the historic attack on the Moncado Barracks as she addresses Santiago de Cuba.
The format is text with a few pictures at the start of the chapters, five of which cover the Cuban cities and towns of Havana, Vinales, Cienfuegos, Trinidad and Santiagoi De Cuba, the remaining chapters given over to Beaches, Tobacco and Cigars, Politics, Vintage Cars and Cuban Rhythm.
After that beginning, the rest of the chapter is given over to pictures, and wonderful ones they are, from buildings to faces, from motor vehicles to lithe bodies at the world-famous Tropicana, and children playing in the streets.
Cuba, Portrait of An Island may go overboard in its praise ("it hardly needs to be said that Cuban popular music leads the world" is stretching it, okay), but as a handy package to carry a slice of a fascinating pie of history, politics, personality and life around it is hard to beat.
And, yeah, there is not much Castro in it.
