Havana Notebook

Why are we asking this now?

Better late than never, perhaps, but recognition and fame for the various members of the Buena Vista Social Club was, nevertheless, more than a little tardy. It was the American guitarist Ry Cooder who brought some of these fabled Cuban musicians out of retirement for a famed collaboration in 1996, and a subsequent 1997 album, Buena Vista Social Club. Such key members as Compay Segundo (vocals, guitar), Ruben Gonzalez (piano), Ibrahim Ferrer (vocals) and now Orlando Lopez (bass) have since died. Lopez, at the age of 63, was a comparative youngster in the band.

Death and detection in 1950s Cuba

A new biography describes how the Cuban Revolution was ignited by the spark between its two iconic leaders

Nicolas Guillén's masterly verses synthesised what the January 1959 triumph brought to our people. "I have what I was meant to have," he said in one of his poems, referring not to material wealth but to being the masters of our own destiny.

The Cuban revolution is half a century old this week. But to many of its children, the Communist regime is as rickety as the crumbling buildings of Old Havana. Leonard Doyle reports

There's nowhere like Cuba. But how much longer do we have to experience its unique way of life?

Although he was unable to properly write down his own compositions and never pursued music as anything more than a hobby, Nico Rojas was a highly respected guitarist and composer in his native Cuba.

Hurricane Ike was battering the Cuban capital, Havana, yesterday, damaging historic buildings and forcing tens of thousands of people to flee.

Hurricane Ike roared across Cuba today, tearing off roofs and sending waves crashing into buildings, as 900,000 Cubans fled to shelters or higher ground and Havana residents in decaying historic buildings prepared for a direct hit.

Get fighting fit with Fidel

A curious, tricksy Cuban film from 1974, in which self-referential fiction (from a novel by Edmond Desnoes, who has a cameo as himself) is punctuated by spells of actuality and documentary.