At the end of December 1956 the young Cuban geographer, Antonio Núñez Jiménez, published in the Havana journal Bohemia an essay entitled ‘Así es la Sierra Maestra’ [This is the Sierra Maestra]. The opening paragraph of the essay is very much of a piece with the descriptions we have seen from James J. O'Kelly, Pablo de la Torriente Brau, Josephine Herbst, and other visitors to the mountainous districts of Oriente:

To suggest the extent of the area, Núñez Jiménez points out—with an absolutely straight face—that the distance between Guantánamo Bay and Cabo Cruz is greater than that between Havana and Miami. The discourses that govern his description of the inhabitants are those of modernity and diversity. Most of the people living in the mountains are illiterate and know nothing of the ‘advances of the modern era’; and so Núñez Jiménez attaches to them the usual string of negatives associated with the marking of social or cultural difference: ‘no radio, no newspapers, no television, no motorised transport, no electricity’ (CCMH, p. 120).