Buenos Aires/The presentation will be given by its author, Ståle Wig, anthropologist. The meeting will feature comments from Juan Manuel del Nido, economist and anthropologist, and Loris Zanatta, historian and professor at the University of Bologna (UNIBO). The moderation will be assumed by the journalist Marina Simonet Hernández, and the opening will correspond to SED Halvor Sætre, ambassador of the Kingdom of Norway.
In 2015, Norwegian anthropologist Ståle Wig arrived in Havana with an unconventional idea: to investigate the economic reforms promoted by Raúl Castro from the wheel of a taxi. From that experience is born Havana Taxia story that follows the lives of three regular passengers (Norges, Linet and Catalina) in the midst of transformations such as the expansion of the internet, the rapprochement with the United States, the death of Fidel Castro and the historic protests of July 11, 2021.
With an anthropological perspective and a narrative pulse, Wig builds an intimate portrait of Cuban society in the so-called “years of illusion,” where individual dreams collide with rigid and persistent structures. Through everyday stories, the book offers a unique window into the tensions between change and stagnation on the Island, revealing both its possibilities and its limits. This title is a chronicle that crosses history, politics and daily experience to understand a country marked by its promises and contradictions.
Ted A. Henken: “This anthropologist has an extraordinary talent as a storyteller and knows Cuba and Cubans in depth. Havana Taxi, written from the island during “the years of illusion,” while investigating the very slow economic reforms and working as a freelance taxi driver, is a first-class journey into the past and into a less visible truth: what Cuba was then and what it could be if its inhabitants achieved freedoms commensurate with their talent and creativity.”
Academic voices participate in the conversation space and provide context and critical reading of contemporary Cuban reality.
