Description

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Cuban art critic and curator Iván de la Nuez explores the effects of the policies that have tried to constrain or liberate Cuba in recent decades in these sparkling essays of cultural criticism.

Essays on Cuba and the Cuban diaspora, on racism and Big Data, Guantánamo and Reggaeton, soccer and baseball, Obama and the Rolling Stones, Europe and Donald Trump—de la Nuez approaches his criticism with singularity of purpose. In Cubanthropy he does not set out to explain Cuba to the world, but rather to put the world into a Cuban context.

“Nothing explains our vexed world quite like Cuba and no one anywhere writes more brilliantly, more prophetically, more impossibly than Iván de la Nuez. As in all of his finest work, Cubanthropy delivers you beyond your old horizons into a realm of startling possibilities. Do not miss this extraordinary book or this extraordinary warlock of a writer.” —Junot Díaz, author of This Is How You Lose Her

“Cubanthropy may just be the smartest writing on Cuba—and beyond—I’ve read in ages. Insightful, unsparing, funny, and with an unerring eye for the paradoxical, Iván de la Nuez has written the definitive compilation on 21st-century Cuba. Essential reading for all who care about how the past, present, and future are disturbingly converging on the island, and off.” —Cristina García, author of forthcoming Vanishing Maps

About the Author

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IVÁN DE LA NUEZ is an essayist, a critic and an art curator. In 1995, he received the Rockefeller Fellowship for the Humanities. He has written art and literary criticism in numerous media, such as El País and the cultural magazine, La Maleta de Portbou. He has been director of the Center for the Image of Barcelona, La Virreina, as well as curator of several highly relevant exhibitions. Author of different anthologies, such as Cuba: The Possible Island (1995), Landscapes After the Wall (1999) or Cuba and the Day After (2001), his essays The Perpetual Raft (1998) and Red Fantasy (2006) have achieved a great reception amongst the critics and the public, and they have been translated into several languages.

ELLEN JONES is a literary translator from Spanish to English, a writer, and an editor. Her recent translations include The Remains by Margo Glantz (Charco Press, 2023), The Forgery by Ave Barrera (Charco Press, 2022, co-translated with Robin Myers), and Nancy by Bruno Lloret (Two Lines Press, 2021). Her monograph, Literature in Motion: Translating Multilingualism Across the Americas, is published by Columbia University Press (2022).

Praise For…

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“Nothing explains our vexed world quite like Cuba and no one anywhere writes more brilliantly, more prophetically, more impossibly than Iván de la Nuez. As in all of his finest work, Cubanthropy delivers you beyond your old horizons into a realm of startling possibilities. Do not miss this extraordinary book or this extraordinary warlock of a writer.” —Junot Díaz, author of This Is How You Lose Her

"Cubanthropy may just be the smartest writing on Cuba—and beyond—I've read in ages. Insightful, unsparing, funny, and with an unerring eye for the paradoxical, Iván de la Nuez has written the definitive compilation on 21st-century Cuba. Essential reading for all who care about how the past, present, and future are disturbingly converging on the island, and off." —Cristina García, author of forthcoming Vanishing Maps

"What would the so-called End of History look like if it were viewed not from Washington or Moscow, Berlin or Beijing, but from Havana? With cosmopolitan sophistication and acerbic wit, Cubanthropy throws a wrench into a number of received ideas about global politics and culture in the post-communist period, not least of which is what counts as center and what counts as periphery." —Ryan Ruby, author of The Zero and the One