The Jaguar Smile: A Nicaraguan Journey

This is most definitely a snapshot of a moment in time. Rushdie traveled to Nicaragua for several weeks in the mid 80's to figure out the situation on the ground. There are some interesting and moving conversations with Nicaraguans not in power documented. Rushdie, though not a writer I generally enjoy, can craft some great sentences and brings valuable reflections from the lens of someone who less removed than he imagines from his roots in a country made unstable both by colonial rule and by its end. There are also many conversations with people in power, including Daniel Ortega. Though he does not overtly say this is his impression, the Sandinistas come across as wholly unprepared for the task at hand and imbued with a very limited show more vision for Nicaragua's future, and those who identify as part of the opposition seem equally incompetent and also malignant. (Violeta Barrios de Chamorro, the widow of the former editor of La Prensa who is running the show when the conversation happens.) Everyone in government and in the opposition seems easily corrupted by little tastes of power. And so the campasinos suffer and fight and things stay bad. A slight but nicely crafted document of a moment. show less

Interesting travelogue, though a bit outdated. In the 1980's Salman Rushdie was invited to Nicaragua by the Sandinista regime. He spent 3 weeks in the country, and on this basis alone he wrote this entire book. I would say that 3 weeks is not a lot to fully get to know a country or get a grasp on its political situation. It is easy to be charmed by poets and writers who have become politicians and by ladies who keep a pet cow in their home.

Luckily Salman Rushdie is a good writer so this book is well written and a pleasure to read. The observations are sharp and sometimes funny. What I also liked about it is the continuous doubt inside the author about a regime which on the one hand claims to be a true democracy but on the other shut show more down a newspaper. Which on the one hand had to fight for survival against a very mighty enemy but on the other hand seemed to misuse its own power against its native Amerindian inhabitants. show less

A magnificent short piece of travel writing and political reportage, with the celebrated writer visiting Nicaragua on little more than a whim to see what the reality of the situation was. Brilliant stuff.

When the author travels around Nicaragua, the Cold War is still being fought on the ground there. The Soviets funded the Sandinistas and the US funded the Contras. He recounted talking to numerous folks, most supporting the Sandinistas, and told some of the country’s history. Occasionally he’d weigh in on his opinions, which I didn’t feel were well-supported by his narrative. In other words, I would have liked more academic input to support his theses. I had a hard time connecting his logic. Maybe it was me and I was bored with the meandering nature of the book. But I always appreciate reading about travels through foreign lands, and the insight of the people. I probably would have liked it better as a travel journal.

I knew very little about Nicaragua before I opened this book and now I know a little more. It is a portrait of the country at a particular time, after the sandinista revolution but before its outcome was known. In 1986, the USA under President Reagan defied the International Criminal Court and continued to fund Contra counter-insurgents in Nicaragua. Rushdie was a guest of the Sandinista government and he was charmed by a country led by poets whose revolution seemed anything but a dictatorship in the making. There were problems to be resolved but at that time war with the USA seemed a real possibility for the Nicaraguan people. A fascinating snapshot of a country in the making.

I loved the breadth and brilliance of Rushdie's Midnight's Children, admired his clever, biting and sly portrait of Benazir Bhutto (the 'Virgin Ironpants') in Shame, was confused with the immature ramblings of Grimus, bored with the Satanic Verses, but to some extent sympathised with the author's viewpoint in The Jaguar Smile.

One of many anti-American, or at least pro-socialist, books that seeks to cast doubt on US involvement on foreign soil in the name of political freedom and the expansion of market, this one is also somewhat of a travelogue and occasionally entertaining. As in almost all Rushdie books, the reader is assumed to be well-read and to be able to catch all the literary allusions which so amuse the author himself, just as show more they did his hero James Joyce.

If you are a Rushdie afficianado then you will love this book, otherwise you might find its greatest virtue is its brevity. show less

A personal journey into a politically explosive land. Rushdie gives us his take on things happening in Nicaragua - an extremely complicated situation. Introducing us to real people embroiled in this situation, helps us avoid the oversimplification many times attibuted to investigative journalism.