The Havana Habit

In The Havana Habit, and with his now well-established practice of intertwining the private and the public, he explores the longstanding and inextricable cultural links that have been developed between the United States and Cuba since the mid-1900s, imaginaries that have largely been built around a dialogically constructed notion of Havana. Taking his evidence mostly from popular culture, both good and bad-u.s. and Cuban tourism, music (rumba, mambo, chachacha), films, tv shows, the marketing of cigars and rum-this book takes readers on a fascinating journey to understand how the "Havana habit" has evolved over the past hundred years. As a result, the study combines an encyclopedic knowledge and a mostly hyphenated positionality which reveals not only Pérez Firmat's deep affection for the Cuban-American way but also his ability to analyze and deconstruct from both sides of the hyphen.