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the story behind Graham Greene's Cold War spy novel
338 pages, 16 unnumbered pages of plates (some color) : illustrations, maps ; 24 cm.
Exploring the backstory that led to the writing of Graham Greene's beloved satirical spy novel, Our Man Down in Havana evokes this pivotal time and place in the author's life. When U.S. immigration authorities deported Graham Greene from Puerto Rico in 1954, the British author made an unplanned visit to Havana and discovered that "every vice was permissible and every trade possible" in a Caribbean fleshpot of mafia-run casinos and nude revues. The former MI6 officer had stumbled upon the ideal setting for a comic espionage story. Three years later, he returned in the midst of Fidel Castro's guerrilla insurgency against a U.S.-backed dictator to begin writing his iconic novel Our Man in Havana. Twelve weeks after its publication, the Cuban Revolution triumphed in January 1959, soon transforming a capitalist playground into a communist stronghold. Combining biography, history and politics, Our Man Down in Havana investigates the real story behind Greene's fictional one. This includes his many visits to a pleasure island that became a revolutionary island, turning his chance involvement into a political commitment. His Cuban novel describes an amateur agent who dupes his intelligence chiefs with invented reports about "concrete platforms and unidentifiable pieces of giant machinery." With eerie prescience, Greene's satirical tale had foretold the Cold War's most perilous episode, the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis.
Introduction -- A writing life -- Part 1. Before the Cuban Revolution. Brother, sister, brother, spy -- Cold War settings -- Havana Vice -- Down in Havana -- Our arms in Havana -- Part 2. After the Cuban Revolution. Shooting "Our man in Havana" -- Reality imitates fiction -- "Return to Cuba" -- "Shadow and sunlight in Cuba": finally meeting Fidel -- From Havana with love -- Conclusion.
Includes bibliographical references and index.