Description
The Jaguar Smile is Rushdies 1st full-length non-fiction book, written in 1987 after he visited Nicaragua. It relates his travel experiences, the people he met as well as views on the political situation. The book was written during a break he took from writing The Satanic Verses. After political & economic turmoil under dictator Anastasio Somoza Debayle, the progres The Jaguar Smile is Rushdies 1st full-length non-fiction book, written in 1987 after he visited Nicaragua. It relates his travel experiences, the people he met as well as views on the political situation. The book was written during a break he took from writing The Satanic Verses. After political & economic turmoil under dictator Anastasio Somoza Debayle, the progressive Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN) came to power in Nicaragua in 1979 supported by most of the populace & elements of the Catholic Church. The government was initially backed by the USA under Carter, but support evaporated under Reagan in light of claims the Sandinistas were providing help to the FMLN in El Salvador. The USA imposed economic sanctions & a trade embargo which contributed to the Nicaraguan economys collapse. While the USSR & Cuba funded the Nicaraguan army, the USA financed contra counter-revolutionaries in neighboring Honduras & elsewhere with a view towards imposing a subservient government. Nicaragua won a historic case against the USA at the International Court of Justice in 1986 (see Nicaragua v. US) & the USA was ordered to pay them $12 billion in reparations for criminally undermining their sovereignty. Salman Rushdie visited on the occasion of the 7th anniversary of the Sandinista rise to power. His three week trip to Nicaragua in the summer of 1986 was at the invitation of Sandinista Association of Cultural Workers, the umbrella organisation that brought writers, artists, musicians, craftspeople, dancers & so on, together under the same roof.
The Jaguar Smile is Rushdies 1st full-length non-fiction book, written in 1987 after he visited Nicaragua. It relates his travel experiences, the people he met as well as views on the political situation. The book was written during a break he took from writing The Satanic Verses. After political & economic turmoil under dictator Anastasio Somoza Debayle, the progres The Jaguar Smile is Rushdies 1st full-length non-fiction book, written in 1987 after he visited Nicaragua. It relates his travel experiences, the people he met as well as views on the political situation. The book was written during a break he... Read More