In good novels, especially detective novels, it is not only a central character that appears; the city in which the events unfold usually also takes center stage. That is why there is no better guide to getting to know Havana than Leonardo Padura, the man who, in his novels, knows how to capture its pulse in different eras.

This book, presented as a distinctive, parallel autobiography of the author himself, offers a unique journey through the neighborhoods of the Cuban capital, from Mantilla to La Rampa. The stories included here are accompanied, respectively, by relevant excerpts from Padura’s novels.

Also, in the second part, texts are brought together about the most unknown and astonishing sides of many areas of Havana, as well as about the course of an emblematic hero: it is not at all difficult to see the prototypes of Mario Conde’s cases. Padura, an acute observer, sensitive to the past, has the special ability to make us live in the city of the present and, at the same time, allow us to travel through time to touch its brilliant past.