Cubantropía. English

Cubanthropy : between the Cold War's socialist promise and a capitalist future / Iván De La Nuez ; translated by Ellen Jones.

New York, NY : Seven Stories Press, [2023]

223 pages ; 21 cm

In English, translated from the Spanish

"Cubantropía (Cubanthropy) is a work of cultural criticism whose title is a neologism coined by the author to describe the energy between anthropology and entropy, the space between the street and the library, the island and the world. These collected essays, written in Iván de la Nuez's trademark ironic, erudite style, range in subject matter from the Berlin Wall to Havana's Malecón. This book examines recent clashes between the market and democracy, the digital era and post-colonialism, the centre and the periphery, utopia and tourism, the diaspora and the nation, racism and Big Data, Guantánamo and Reggaeton, soccer and baseball, Obama and the Rolling Stones, Europe and Donald Trump. It is written between the socialist perspective of the Cold War and the neoliberal perspective of subsequent years, and is equally critical of both and of geopolitics in the age of globalization. The author, Cuban art critic and curator Iván de la Nuez does not seek to explain his motherland to the world but uses it as a scaled-down referent in which contemporary socio-political conflicts are intensified. Though Fidel Castro and his death are omnipresent in this collection of essays, the word "Castro" intentionally appears less often than "future," "art," "life," or "journey." In Cubantropía, Cuba is not a separate, discreet place, but a miniature of the world and its conflicts. Cubantropía can be read as an intellectual autobiography, a map of itineraries of New Men born out of the revolution, or a bacchanalia of the consequences that arise from a world obsessed with causes and culprits"-- Provided by publisher.

English

January 31, 2024

Includes bibliographical references.