Ten Days in Harlem

Rising star Simon Hall captures the spirit of the 1960s in ten days that revolutionised the Cold War: Fidel Castro's visit to New York. 'With its cool judgements and blackly comic sense of irony, Hall's book is a rare pleasure to read.' DOMINIC SANDBROOK, Literary Review 'A lively account . . . Ten Days in Harlem doesn't stint on piquant detail.' LONDON REVIEW OF BOOKS '[A] perceptive, thoroughly researched and readable study.' IRISH TIMES New York City, September 1960. Fidel Castro - champion of the oppressed, scourge of colonialism, and leftist revolutionary - arrives for the opening of the United Nations General Assembly. His visit to the UN represents a golden opportunity to make his mark on the world stage. Fidel's shock arrival in Harlem is met with a rapturous reception from the local African American community. He holds court from the iconic Hotel Theresa as a succession of world leaders, black freedom fighters and counter-cultural luminaries - everyone from Nikita Khrushchev to Gamal Abdel Nasser, Malcolm X to Allen Ginsberg - come calling. Then, during his landmark address to the UN General Assembly - one of the longest speeches in the organisation's history - he promotes the politics of anti-imperialism with a fervour, and an audacity, that makes him an icon of the 1960s. In this unforgettable slice of modern history, Simon Hall reveals how these ten days were a foundational moment in the trajectory of the Cold War, a turning point in the history of anti-colonial struggle, and a launching pad for the social, cultural and political tumult of the decade that followed. 'Hall delivers his entertaining taile with brio.' i 'Hall captures Castro's action-packed September 1960 soujourn in rich and compelling detail, and argues persuasisively that its repercussions echoed deeply in the decades to come.' NEW YORK JOURNAL OF BOOKS