Havana is Cuba’s soul: a mix of Third World, First World, and Other World. After over a decade of visits as a teacher, researcher, and friend, Karen Dubinsky looks past political slogans and tourist postcards to the streets, neighbourhoods, and personalities of a complicated and contradictory city. Her affectionate, humorous vignettes illustrate how Havana’s residents—old Communist ladies, their sceptical offspring, musicians, underground vendors, entrepreneurial landlords, and poverty-stricken professors—go about their daily lives.

As Cuba undergoes dramatic change, there is much to appreciate, and learn from, in the unlikely world Cubans have collectively built for themselves.

A portion of the proceeds from the sale of this book will go to the Queen’s University Student Overseas Travel Fund—The Sonia Enjamio Fund, which funds Cuban/Canadian student exchange.

Karen Dubinsky is Professor of History and Global Development Studies at Queen's University. She is the author and editor of several books, including Within and Without the Nation: Transnational Canadian History (2015, co-editors Adele Perry and Henry Yu), My Havana: The Musical City of Carlos Varela (2014, co-editors Caridad Cumana and Xenia Reloba), and Babies without Borders: Adoption and Migration Across the Americas (2010).

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