Synopsis
In 1970 Jorge Edwards was sent by Chilean President Allende as his country's first envoy to break the diplomatic blockade that had sealed off Cuba for over a decade. His arrival coincided with the turning point of the Revolution, when Castro began to repress the very intellectuals he had once courted. A gifted writer, a diplomat, a socialist, an outsider, Edwards has a unique perspective on this crucial moment in history, which has determined Cuba's fate. As Jose Donoso has written, "Persona Non Grata reveals the essence of Castro's Cuba and Allende's Chile and offers a different view of what it means to be Latin American."

In Kafkaesque detail, Edwards records the four explosive months he spent in Havana trying to open a Chilean embassy and his disenchantment with the Revolution. His stay culminated in the arrest of his friend Heberto Padilla - the first imprisonment of a well-known writer by the regime - for giving Edwards a "negative view of the Revolution." In a menacing midnight political debate with Edwards immediately after Padilla's arrest, Castro argued that in the new phase of the Revolution, the bourgeois writers would no longer have "anything to do in Cuba." Castro accused Edwards of "conduct hostile to the Revolution" and declared him "persona non grata."

In this haunting memoir that reads like a thriller, Edwards brilliantly portrays the inner workings of the dictatorship. He recounts how the ubiquitous secret police and their fondness for listening devices hidden in lamps, mirrors, and air conditioners brought Edwards, Padilla, and Laurita Allende (the president's sister) close to nervous breakdowns. Throughout Edwards gives surreal tales of Castro's madness. With biting irony, he describes a comic tour of a model dairy, where Castro, Edwards, and the guests tasted milk as if it were vintage wine, with Castro insisting that "We are going to achieve a Camembert better than France's," despite the rationing of milk and cheese throughout the island.