While guidebooks might tell you that time collapsed here, another theory says that in Latin America, all of history co-exists at once. In 1958, Graham Greene wrote, "To live in Havana was to live in a factory that turned out human beauty on a conveyor-belt." Yet this beauty the people of Cuba unquestionably possess… Read more

Rigondeaux snickered, dropped his head and smirked, taking a last long drag on his cigarette before flicking it on the ground and stamping it out with his sneaker. "Oh you know, I melted down both my gold medals into my mouth. I used to fight in this place …" Read more

Only a few months before, I had heard that the new captain of the Cuban national team, since Savon had stepped down, two-time Olympic gold medalist Guillermo Rigondeaux, had attempted to defect in Brazil with teammate Erislandy Lara and had been arrested. This amounted to the highest-profile boxing defection in Cuban… Read more

My first trip to Havana was in February of 2000, in the midst of the Elian Gonzalez fiasco. This time, what was referred to as "political kiddie porn" entered into the civil war fought across 90 miles of ocean. At the age of five, Elian Gonzalez and his mother, along with twelve other passengers, had left Cuba on a… Read more

Rigondeaux snickered, dropped his head and smirked, taking a last long drag on his cigarette before flicking it on the ground and stamping it out with his sneaker. "Oh you know, I melted down both my gold medals into my mouth. I used to fight in this place…" Read more

Without realizing it I started toward Rigondeaux. As I approached him, in the shade under the bleachers of the entrance to Rafael Trejo, my first impression was that his was the saddest face I had ever seen on the island. One of the few things not in short supply in Havana is sadness. Rigondeaux's sadness… Read more

While guidebooks might tell you that time collapsed here, another theory says that in Latin America, all of history co-exists at once. In 1958, Graham Greene wrote, "To live in Havana was to live in a factory that turned out human beauty on a conveyor-belt." Yet this beauty the people of Cuba unquestionably possess… Read more

Only a few months before, I had heard that the new captain of the Cuban national team, since Savon had stepped down, two-time Olympic gold medalist Guillermo Rigondeaux, had attempted to defect in Brazil with teammate Erislandy Lara and had been arrested. This amounted to the highest profile boxing defection in Cuban… Read more

When you first arrive in Cuba it's hard not to wonder what Shakespeare would have done with a character like Fidel Castro. Then it doesn't take long before you realize the better question is what Fidel Castro would have done with Shakespeare. Guidebooks and legions of tourists warn you that Cuba is frozen in time, but… Read more

Even the act of writing a book exploring the ambiguity of that choice had caused Price to be banned from ever returning to Cuba. "You have penetrated an impenetrable system," he was told by security agents. The bombshell of the book was Cuban boxer Hector Vinent, a two-time Olympic champion as Guillermo Rigondeaux was… Read more

On the flight over I was reading Pitching Around Fidel: A Journey Into the Heart of Cuban Sport by S.L. Price. Each elite athlete profiled in the book encountered the same, hopelessly impossible decision as every other Cuban, only with a lot more money being offered to escape. Where Teofilo Stevenson had rejected five… Read more

On the flight over I was reading Pitching Around Fidel: A Journey Into the Heart of Cuban Sport by S.L. Price. Each elite athlete profiled in the book encountered the same, hopelessly impossible decision as every other Cuban, only with a lot more money being offered to escape. Where Teofilo Stevenson had rejected five… Read more

My first trip to Havana was in February of 2000, in the midst of the Elian Gonzalez fiasco. This time, what was referred to as "political kiddie porn" entered into the civil war fought across 90 miles of ocean. At the age of five, Elian Gonzalez and his mother, along with twelve other passengers, had left Cuba on a… Read more