Discover the literary secrets of Old Havana with a young Cuban writer

Did you know that Hemingway loved the Cuban mojito? That Padura's latest novel takes place on San Isidro Street? Or that there is a statue of Cecilia Valdés, the pioneering woman of Cuban novels, on Loma del Ángel?

We'll start on foot at Loma del Ángel, the setting of Cuba's first novel, Cecilia Valdés. Then we'll stroll to La Bodeguita del Medio to talk about the impact of Nobel Prize winner Ernest Hemingway on our literature. Nearby, we'll see the façade of the former house of the Count of Reunion, the heart of Alejo Carpentier's novel, The Age of Enlightenment.

Next, we will explore the Vitrier García Marruz house-museum, which houses books belonging to a Cuban intellectual couple who lived through the revolutionary period.

Walking up Obispo Street, we find a state-run bookstore that offers contemporary Cuban books of all genres at incredibly low prices (less than a dollar). A few blocks away is the private bookstore, La Victoria, frequented in the 1940s by the writer Lezama Lima and the Orígenes group. They always have copies of Paradiso!

To conclude, we will tour the Central Plaza, home to the statue of José Martí, Cuba's national hero and pioneer of the modernist movement.

There are no off-limits topics. Ask your guide, Sofia Miragaya, anything about the lives of these authors, the Cuban book industry's subsidy system, or her own experiences as a writer.