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Podcast: New Books in Caribbean Studies
Episode: Alexandrine Boudreault-Fournier, "Aerial Imagination in Cuba: Stories from Above the Rooftops" (Routledge, 2019)
Description: In her new book Aerial Imagination in Cuba: Stories from Above the Rooftops (Routledge, 2019), Alexandrine Boudreault-Fournier looks up at the sky, and from there she begins her stories about wifi, pigeons, cacti, the lottery and congas. This dense and surprising ethnography considers the everyday lives of Cubans as they navigate, invent, and strategize ways to sustain what is most important to them. The book offers a new account of what has been called the Special Period in Cuba, and it does so through powerful storytelling. The emphasis here is on the ambiguous role of the state, the condition of...