We see that javascript is disabled or not supported by your browser - javascript is needed for important actions on the site. Read more

What's New - Home - Login

Member $avings: $81,569,428.11 | Books Available: 794,950 | Members Online: 31

Swap Used Books - Buy New Books at Great Prices!

How To Swap Books Sign Up Search submenu

PBS Market (New Books)

Gift Buying Guide

Book Browser Advanced Search Books Posted Today Member Book Reviews Award Winning Books NYT Best Sellers Amazon Best Sellers Most Traveled Copies Club Wish List

Discussion Forums Book Lists

Club Lists My Book Lists My Watched Lists Create a List

Blog Donations

School Donation Program In Memory of... Military Donation Program Friends of PBS

Box-O-Books Maps The Eclectic Pen Fun Stuff

20 Questions Sudoku Bookmark Creator

Top 100

Requests Posts Swappers Referrers Reviewers

Pulse of PBS Spread The Word

Invite Friends Bookmarks Facebook Page Facebook App More Ways...

Photo Gallery Recipes Club Tag Cloud Member Testimonials

Help Center submenu

How To Swap Books Browse Help Docs Ask the Librarian PBS Member Icons Live Help

Kiosk

PBS Market (New Books) Go Shopping Buy Credits Buy PBS Money Upgrade Membership Gift Certificates Transfer Credits

Need Help?

Search - The Idea of Cuba

The Idea of Cuba
Author: Alex Harris

"Everyone seems to be waiting. A young woman in a pink shirt leans against a pillar. Two men sit on a stoop and look in her direction. Like most Havana streets, this one, Calle Zapatos in Santos Suárez, has seen better days. A glance reveals generations of faded paint, cracked plaster, and worn-down sidewalks. It's a curious kind of waiting--at ... more »once lethargic and restless--that I've become accustomed to in Cuba. Whatever is going to happen seems a long way off."--Alex Harris This remarkable journey into contemporary Cuba by photographer and writer Alex Harris is both a powerful and mysterious evocation of life on the island and an original meditation on the nature of documentary photography that reveals what Harris has learned over thirty-five years as a documentary photographer.Like his mentor, Walker Evans, who photographed Cuba in 1933 at a pivotal political moment, Harris arrived in Cuba with his camera at a crossroads in Cuban history. Well known for over thirty-five years of photographic work in the Hispanic Southwest, Alaska, and the American South, Harris made three trips to Cuba to photograph a nation coming to grips with the economic and social devastation that followed the collapse of the socialist bloc in 1989, a nation beginning to imagine a future without Fidel Castro. On each trip to Cuba, Harris used a different approach to peer deeper into the fabric of Cuban society. In the foreground of Harris's photographs and text are some of the archetypes of contemporary Cuban life: the indomitable 1950s American car, the beautiful young woman, and the revered revolutionary hero. Yet Harris recasts these symbols. We don't look at the car, but through it to consider the tangled relationship between Cuba and the United States. His portraits of young women challenge us to consider the nature of our gaze and to see the changing status of Cuban women in relation to Castro's political survival. The Cuban hero José Martí, a repeated icon in Harris’s photographs and the focus of his text, evokes Martí’s constant physical and spiritual presence for the Cuban people. Indeed, Martí is at the heart of this book, a visual and textual mantra giving us insight into the Cuban national character and helping us to understand what gives Cubans--on the island or in exile--their enduring strength and their hope for the future.In her accompanying essay, Yale historian Lillian Guerra confronts the paradox of Cuba from a different perspective. An American daughter of Cuban exiles, she has visited the island repeatedly to conduct research and to try to understand what it means to be Cuban.Alex Harris beautifully captures many archetypes of today's Cuba, and Lillian Guerra's essay discusses what it means to be Cuban.

ISBN-13: 9780826341396
ISBN-10: 082634139X
Publication Date: 7/16/2007
Pages: 152
Rating:

Currently 0.5/5 Stars.

0.5 stars, based on 1 rating

Publisher: University of New Mexico Press
Book Type: Hardcover
Members Wishing: 0
Reviews: Amazon | Write a Review

Genres:

Arts & Photography >> Photography & Video >> Collections, Catalogues & Exhibitions
Arts & Photography >> Photography & Video >> Photographers, A-Z >> General
Arts & Photography >> Photography & Video >> Photo Essays
Arts & Photography >> Photography & Video >> Portraits
History >> Americas >> Caribbean & West Indies >> Cuba
History >> Americas >> United States >> 20th Century >> 1945 - Present
Reference >> Writing >> Travel
Travel >> Caribbean >> Cuba >> General
Travel >> Travel Writing

Back to the Top ↑

Search - The Idea of Cuba

Loading...