Intrigue, glamour, turmoil – there’s so much wrapped up in how people think about Cuba. Travel writer Jessica Dixon, who recently wrote an article about Havana for us, reviews the book Cuba Then, which provides a perspective on a backstory that only serves to intrigue us more.

Cuba, a mere 103 miles from Key West, seems a world away – or, at least, an age away, as beautifully captured in the revised and expanded version of Cuba Then. Author Ramiro Fernandez was born in Cuba and lived there until age 8, when his family fled to the United States. Fernandez later worked as a photo editor for Time Inc., and at his grandmother’s urging, he began building an extensive personal collection of rare and little-seen photographs of his homeland.

Cuba Then weaves together Fernandez’s collection of images from the 1850s through the 1960s and poems by Richard Blanco, who read at President Obama’s second inauguration.

If you’re not a scholar of Cuban history, Fernandez’s wide-ranging collection of photos might inspire you to do some research. The pictures capture a fabled golden era – musicians with ruffled sleeves, glamorous dancers and movie stars, Americans escaping Prohibition, and Winston Churchill inspecting a box of cigars.

Carnival Time. José Martí Park, Cienfuegos, Villa Clara, c. 1925
Credit: R. Otero-Cienfuegos

Cuba Then is more than just a collection of pretty pictures: the photos also explore Cuba’s transition from colonization to independence to revolution. Images of glamour and decadence are often paired with a parallel picture reflecting the complex truth behind the famed mid-century years. An actor looks through a belly dancer’s coin belt; Fidel Castro gazes through the sight of an MK51 gun director. Carnival parade floats depict laughing women, or men in drag; Soviet missiles comprise a different sort of parade.

Cuban citizens and foreign diplomats pose proudly alongside their new American-made cars in the late 1950s. We know what they could not: those cars would be some of the last of their kind to cross those 103 miles. They would be destined to stay on the roads, not as show cars shined up for a Saturday ride, but as an iconic emblem of Cuba’s isolation.

A Pan American World Airways promotional photo of Carnival highlights the international tourism campaign at midcentury. Havana, 1955.
Credit: Pan American World Airways Latin American Division

Equally intriguing are the pictures from the late 19^th and early 20^th centuries, depicting traveling circuses, grand hotels, and a society just breaking free from Spanish colonial rule. The midcentury stories are more familiar lore, but this book brings the reader further back, deeper into the island’s history, sharing a more complete understanding of Cuba, without obvious judgment or bias.

Blanco’s foreword captures the spirit of this beautiful book: he urges the reader to “delve into the imagination of my Cuba, your Cuba, our Cuba.” Cuba Then provides an escape to a time that exists only in memories, poignantly captured by Blanco’s poems and Fernandez’s photographs. It is a worthwhile journey.

Cuba Then: Revised and Expanded by Ramiro A. Fernandez, published by The Monacelli Press 2018, $40 Hardcover, 320 pages, ISBN 9781580935104

Hungry for more? Read Jessica Dixon’s experience on a whirlwind weekend in Havana, here. 

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