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IMO...Bardach is THE pre-eminent "Habanista"...that class of foreign experts/pundits...who sift and sort thru Cuba's heavily sugared coffee grounds...aka public pronouncements...to discern what is really happening in La Habana.
Bardach is the author of “Without Fidel: A Death Foretold in Miami, Havana and Washington.”
As a longtime observer of and visitor to Cuba...I highly recommend it. It is very readable.
In this NYT piece...she describes the long symbiotic lovefest...between Fidel Castro and Hugo Chavez.
Bardach: "It’s unclear how many birthdays are left for either leader. Both are now facing their greatest challenges yet, not from opposition movements or dissidents, but from their own failing bodies. Mr. Castro nearly died in 2006 during a botched colon surgery to treat a pernicious case of chronic diverticulitis. He passed his 80th birthday lying in a hospital bed, connected to an antibiotic and nutrient drip. Sitting beside him was Hugo Chávez, who has been there at every stage of Mr. Castro’s five-year convalescence, casually jetting into Havana as if it were a stroll around the block.
Now the 57-year-old Venezuelan (Chavez) is fighting for his own life, after a baseball-size tumor was removed from his abdomen in Havana’s top hospital in June. It was Fidel Castro, not an oncologist, surgeon or family member, who delivered the bad news to Mr. Chávez..."
