In How Things Fall Apart Elizabeth Dore reveals the decay of
the Cuban political system through the lives of seven ordinary Cuban
citizens. Born in the 1970s and 1980s, they recount how their lives
changed over a tumultuous stretch of thirty-five years: first when
Fidel Castro opened the country to tourism following the fall of the
Soviet bloc; then when Raúl Castro allowed market forces to operate;
and finally when President Trump’s tightening of the US embargo
combined with the COVID-19 pandemic caused economic collapse. With
warmth and humanity, they describe learning to survive in an
environment where a tiny minority has grown rich, the great majority
has been left behind, and inequality has destroyed the very things
that used to give meaning to Cubans’ lives. In this book, everyday
Cubans illuminate their own stories and the slow and agonizing
decline of the Cuban Revolution.
