New Books in History Karen Dubinsky, "Strangely, Friends: A History of Cuban-Canadian Encounters" (Between the Lines, 2025)
Mar 9, 2026
Karen Dubinsky, Professor of History at Queen's University and author of Strangely Friends, explores Cuban-Canadian personal and cultural ties. She traces teaching exchanges that sparked the research. She highlights engineers and NGO work in Cuba, student tours, and vibrant Cuban music scenes in Toronto and Montreal. She also reflects on how recent crises strain these people-to-people connections.
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People Connections Reveal Hidden Diplomacy
- People-to-people exchanges reveal everyday Cuban-Canadian relations that official diplomacy misses.
- Karen Dubinsky observed this directly by bringing Canadian students into Havana to meet musicians, filmmakers, and cultural producers over 18 years.
Diverse Canadians Who Lived in Cuba
- Canadians in Cuba included tourists, revolution-supporters, wealthy settlers, and cultural figures like Leonard Cohen and Harry Tanner.
- Karen describes Leonard Cohen's embassy rescue after Bay of Pigs and Harry Tanner staying in Cuba to become a filmmaker and artist.
CUSO Built Enduring Engineering Capacity
- CUSO's NGO technical cooperation succeeded where many development projects fail by building Cuban engineering teaching capacity.
- Canadian professors ran short courses that helped establish what became Cuba's Curay engineering school.
