book recommendation

While I was in Nicaragua, I read Salman Rushdie's account of a three week trip he took to Nicaragua in 1986. The book is called The Jaguar Smile: A Nicaraguan Journey.

I've never been a huge Rushdie fan, but this book was terrific. It's a brilliant observation of an imperfect and young democracy that was struggling not only with its own identity but also with the crushing pressure of Ronald Reagan and the United States.

It's also interesting from a purely historical point of view. The United States did not (overtly) invade Central America, an event that the Nicaraguans almost universally expected in 1986. The Iran-Contra scandal was just beginning to percolate in the greater American public consciousness. Violeta Barrios de Chamorro was still the widow of martyred La Prensa editor Pedro Chamorro, not a presidential candidate, though one can see the formidable evasive speaking skills of a politician in her interview with Rushdie.

Rushdie has a distinct point of view; in his discussions of the warts of the Sandinistas, he limits his commentary to their reluctant embrace of censorship and avoids the rather more serious allegations of torture and murder, which in 1986 were already being circulated against the Sandinista Secret Police. Sandinista supporters claim that those allegations were exaggerated by the United States in an effort to discredit the Sandinistas. The victims point to mass graves. Probably the murky truth lies, as always, somewhere in the middle. I wish Rushdie had at least acknowledged that censorship was not the worst failing of the Sandinista government.

But otherwise, I thought the book was excellent. Highly recommended.