Siyah Sanat Dergisi – Cuban Rhythm

We all know the excitement of setting out on a journey. Along with the beauty of discovering new places, the fear of the unknown gives you a slight stomach ache. However hard and daunting its particular rush, hardship and ordeal may be, it makes a part of us brave. And so we take to the road, like Evliya Çelebi.

Albert Camus, who said “Travel brings us back to ourselves,” was right. Travelling has a healing side. So does reading travel books... Küba Ritmi (Cuban Rhythm), written by Erdem Genç and published by Parkkitap in July 2015, took me on an imaginary journey. For a few days I was a guest at the other end of the world, in the island nation in the Caribbean.

Author Erdem Genç made two visits to Cuba, discovered by Christopher Columbus in 1492, in 2010 and 2012. Stating that although he has seen more than forty countries he loves Cuba the most, he presents readers with this book, in which he collected his travel notes.

Erdem Genç’s first aim on this trip, which he made with his friends, is to embrace and internalize Cuba’s music and to hear it from its masters in the country where it is performed. This […]

“Sometimes the government, sometimes the American embargo allows almost nothing to be imported into Cuba. Although some concessions have been made for tourism, the only source of income, these have not yet reached the people. The people, who try to follow innovations via satellite and old newspapers and magazines, can access almost none of them.”