A Global Americans review of The Cubans: Ordinary Lives in Extraordinary Times Click to read this article in English For a number of decades, Anthony DePalma was a reporter covering Latin America for The New York Times. In The Cubans: Ordinary Lives in Extraordinary Times, he provides a look into Cuba, his wife’s birthplace and a country long under the thumb of a dictatorial system constructed around the personality of former Prime Minister Fidel Castro. DePalma focuses on a narrow slice of Havana—the Guanabacoa neighborhood and a number of its families. In doing so, he has created an excellent read about the lives of “ordinary” citizens, looking through the lens of a number of non-political peoples’ perspectives on their country and its path since 1959.