Exotic Cuban underworld

Before the revolución of 1959, Havana was, effectively, a mafia fleshpot and colony of Las Vegas.

Before the revolución of 1959, Havana was, effectively, a mafia fleshpot and colony of Las Vegas. Graham Greene first visited in 1954, when the dancing girls wore spangled headdresses. The Batista regime was then at its height, and tourists flocked to the Cuban capital for its promise of tropical oblivion.

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Rupert Darwall

Labour has walked into a net-zero trap of its own making

George Greene, the ‘GG’ of the title of this novella, is an English holidaymaker on the prowl in pre-communist Havana. Castro’s revolution is less than four years away — it is the summer of 1955 — and George hurls himself promiscuously into Batista’s grimy sex industry. Teenaged prostitutes hover outside his hotel and their pimps are not much older. Unsurprisingly, Havana will prove his undoing.