Our Woman in Havana: Reporting Castro's Cuba

Description

From inside this tightly controlled one-party state, Sarah Rainsford, the BBC's 'woman in Havana' for three years, reports on lives shaped by Fidel Castro's giant social experiment and how the nation feels as the six-decade rule of the Castros comes to an end. Seeking a window into pre-revolutionary Cuba, she searches for the ghosts of Graham Greene's Havana and the paths walked by other visiting writers hooked on a city where 'every vice was permissible'. Through all these stories and those still being told, Our Woman in Havana weaves an enthralling, atmospheric portrait of this enigmatic country as it teeters, once more, at a historic crossroads.

Sarah Rainsford has worked for the BBC for twenty years, beginning her reporting in Russia where her team's coverage of the Beslan school siege won a SONY Gold Award. She has since been posted to Istanbul and Madrid before heading for Havana in 2011. She is now the BBC Moscow correspondent. This is her first book.

'An unmissable insight into a still hidden world.' -- Mishal Husain '[A] colourful and affectionate account of this complex and fascinating place.' * Literary Review * 'Rainsford confronts a country of enigmatic contradictions with eyes and heart wide open in this fascinating, enlightening read.' * Booklist * 'Sarah Rainsford has written a lively and detailed account of her time in Havana and evokes the spirit of Graham Greene in delightful and surprising ways.' -- Thomas P. O'Connor, director of Dangerous Edge: A Life of Graham Greene, and Professor Emeritus, James Madison University