Swimming With Fidel The Toils Of An Accidental Journalist eBook Michael Arkus
Download As PDF : Swimming With Fidel The Toils Of An Accidental Journalist eBook Michael Arkus 
It is the 1960s, the height of the glory days of the Cuban revolution, and Fidel Castro has disappeared - scarcely a sighting or mention in the broadcast and written media that he dominates. Madcap rumours gather force, especially among diplomats, that he has lost power in a palace coup. Even his great nemesis Washington buys into the idea that something is amiss. The word is out find Fidel.
A young British journalist, meanwhile, in Cuba on his first solo posting, is pursuing his daily practice of shirking office work by decamping to the beach. Enjoying a morning of swimming and sunning, he bumps into none other than Fidel himself doing exactly the same. A major scoop – if only our man in Havana had a conventional journalist's temperament.
For nearly four years the author, a reluctant journalist more interested in pursuing world travel, drink and tropical sex than the next great scoop, has a front-row seat during the golden age of the Cuban revolution. An undisciplined free spirit, can he survive the increasingly corporatised world of journalism while enjoying all that 1960s Havana has to offer?
From pitfalls to pratfalls, follow the author as he navigates this island paradise that is part tropical Monty Python, part Kafka. Take a look inside the intricacies of Fidel's management style Fidel as economic developer, Fidel as mountain-top beautician on Cuba's highest peak, Fidel as ice cream innovator. Read about 'interviews' with Josephine Baker and Allen Ginsberg, an accidental arrest with Fidel’s older brother, a dysfunctional diplomatic corps complete with party games, toga parties, and liquor heists at the British ambassador's residence.
Swimming With Fidel The Toils Of An Accidental Journalist eBook Michael Arkus
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Swimming With Fidel The Toils Of An Accidental Journalist eBook Michael Arkus Reviews
"Swimming With Fidel" is a well-written, engaging book that manages to accomplish several purposes.
First, it provides an inside look at Fidel Castro's Cuba during the glory days of the revolution. It was during this time (1964-1968) that Michael Arkus, the author, was a Reuters correspondent in Cuba and was in a position to observe the revolutionary government close up and personal. Through what Arkus says, we get a detailed portrait of Castro that was (and is) seldom conveyed through the mainstream media. Arkus paints a picture of an extremely intelligent and complex man, someone with a genuine sense of humor, with a great amount of personal compassion, who at the same time had quite a number of quirks and who was consistently inconsistent in many of the policies he promulgated during this time.
What "Swimming With Fidel" portrays of this period in Cuba also provides a balance between those who during that time (and later) worshipped the revolution (and sometimes the man Castro) and those who demonized everything about Cuba's revolutionary government. Arkus provides an honest look and assessment, one that readily admits the flaws of the regime but also acknowledges the good that it did for the people, especially in contrast to the Batista regime the revolution overthrew.
But the book is far more than a story about Castro and the revolutionary government. Through Arkus's detailed and colorful description we gain a great deal of understanding of the local culture and institutions, both those in and around Havana and those in the Cuban countryside. This itself is enough to justify reading the book from cover to cover.
And we are regaled with often humorous descriptions of the follies and inanities of the diplomatic corps as well as the trials of being a correspondent in a country far removed from one's native land.
All in all, this is a worthwhile, engaging read. I highly recommend it.
I received a copy of the book from the author in exchange for writing an honest review.
Michael seems to have forgotten a lot of things. This book could have been a valid testimony of those years in Cuba, but apparently he chose not to do that. The process of me being arrested was much more rich in history, which Michael chose one more to avoid.
His last night in Havana only two other persons were with him Sara, from the British Embassy, and me.
He also omitted that his tour in Isla de Pinos was a kind of "apology" from the government to him and myself. Those days in Isla de Pinos, Michael and I were together; the same as when we both went to visit ElEscambray and stayed at the Jagua hotel in Cienfuegos; same as when we went to Viñales, in Pinar del Rio and stayed at the hotel Los Jazmines (if that was the name).maybe for personal reasons he decided not to mention much more that would have probably make from this book a best seller. And I am Pedro De Arce, the "Dissapeared".
An interesting read about a fascinating period in the history of "post revolutionary" Cuba. More interesting for me perhaps, since I was there for some of that time. Arkus fills in some of the blanks since he lived there longer and travelled more widely that I could in less than a year.
Arkus is such a knowledgeable correspondent and superb wordsmith that you find yourself thoroughly amused while at the same time absorbing a heck of a lot of history, color, and feelings of the eras covered. An enjoyable read, while at the same time amusing and informative. Arkus is not only an expert on Cuba of the time, but an insider to the methods -- and failings of journalism.
A great choice for anyone interested in Latin America, and for aspiring journalists.
It's been said that the best library is the one with no books in it, as they are out being read. Likewise, the best newsroom is the one with no reporters in it, as they are out finding the damn news. Mike's book is a powerful reminder that the best journalism comes from getting out in the world and having some curiosity about it. You'll find out more heading out to the beach or up into the hills than in sitting in the office marking time. Journalism students menaced with a life of conformity in today's corporatist, social-media dominated newsrooms should read Swimming With Fidel and take heart.
As much as this is a really well-written book about post-revolution Cuba, it is a sad tale of the decline of journalism in the decades since. Arkus, beyond telling us in his self-effacing style about the ins and outs, rights and wrongs of a Communist revolution, reminds us - especially those of the profession - what practicing journalism was all about before the glorious social media revolution began wreaking havoc in the journalistic arena.
Show me a beach-combing reporter today - I'll show you the dodo.
Through his writing, arkus conveys the flavors and scents of an excotic locale turned even more exotic by an imported ideaology which, despite all its shortcomings, often compares favourably with the rest of Latin America - as viewed by the author himself during that same period.
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