He describes Batista’s Havana as a city “where every vice was permissible and every trade possible”. Greene himself admitted he enjoyed the atmosphere of Fulgencio Batista’s city and “never stayed long enough to be aware of the sad political background of arbitrary imprisonment and torture”. Greene writes in his autobiography of agents who diligently sent home false reports based on intelligence received from fictional agents. In pre-revolutionary Cuba, Wormald fabricates reports about mysterious installations being built by insurgents in the mountains of Oriente province in eastern Cuba. Graham Greene in CubaĪ former MI6 agent, Greene was inspired to write this story after observing certain members of the German Abwehr in Portugal during the Second World War. As they passed our table a young lad threw a quick salsa move to the music of the ensemble entertaining us.
And looking out for Captain Segura’s bright red 1950s American classic car.Įach shiny faced, smiling child wore his or her pioneer’s scarf tied securely around their neck. Walking down Lamparilla, I was half listening for the wolf whistles accompanying Milly as she returned from school down Avenida de Belgica. By the end of the month in which it came out, Fidel Castro and his forces had entered Havana and a very different period in the country’s history began. Our Man in Havana was published over 50 years ago.
There was no sign of any vacuum cleaner shop down the quiet, sunny street but I’d not been in Havana five minutes before being transported into the world of Graham Greene. I looked around for a street sign that might help me find my accommodation. I climbed out of the airport taxi and carried my bag past the huge cannons upended into the pavement and through the plaza beside the Convento de San Francisco de Asis.
When I visited the Havana I was fascinated to find a city that lives up to its nostalgic reputation but demands to be engaged with in the present. ‘Our Man in Havana’, Graham Greene’s classic “entertainment” poking fun at the British secret service abroad was published just before the Revolution changed Cuba forever.
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