I rarely find myself a member of such a specific target audience. But having traveled in Nicaragua for a month in 2014 and since then become a socialist myself with criticisms of the Ortega government, I felt very attuned to this book. Not only the places, experiences, and people that Rushdie encountered 40 years ago but also his hesitations and yet unwavering sympathy for a group of revolutionaries who had succeeded against all odds and were under the microscope and bombardment of imperialism. It is unfortunate that the mistakes that Rushdie perceives in Sandinista policy (mixed economy, censorship, lack of support for abortion rights) have yet to be rectified and Ortega has installed himself practically as a leader for life. But I think Rushdie was absolutely correct in his optimism, although cautious, that the revolution could succeed. This is not a book for die hard Rushdie fans except that it will endear him to you as an artist willing to actively engage in a political hot bed and ultimately come down on the side of "the communists" (which, as Rushdie correctly asserts, the Sandinistas never truly were). But this book will give you a sense of Nicaragua as a country, full of contradictions though it may be. And you will find yourself close to the people who live there, which is a rare experience indeed for estadounidenses or europeos.

Salman Rushie reiste 1986 nach Nicaragua. Das Land befindet sich im Stadium nach einer Diktatur, bei Rauswurf die Staatskasse noch geplündert. Das kennt man so. Rushdie trifft Politiker und Dichter, teilweise sind sie es beides. Er schildert die Reise durch das Land und die sozialen Probleme. Wie wird es weiter gehen? Gut zu lesen.

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 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.

Fascinating to see Rushdie navigate hope and hype in the days just after the revolution in Nicaragua. He uncovers quite a bit just by trying to understand attitudes towards censorship and freedom of the press as he interviews politicians, poets, and other cultural luminaries throughout the country.

I was a child in the 80s during the Contra years with Nicaragua and President Reagan. This expose opened my eyes to the unwanted involvement of US in the development of a new government. The author is clearly anti-American which he was very upfront in saying at the beginning. I could clearly see his bias. Apparently, there were three groups, America supported the Contra, which was kidnapping young men to be soldiers. Then Cuba and SU was sending monetary support to Sandinistas. And the third group were just wanting to be left alone in order to build their own nation. I think Rushdie did an amazing job sharing the feelings of ordinary Nicaraguans and the powerful Nicaraguans. This is definitely not a book I would recommend to the patriotic.

Didn't fall into it as easily as his other stuff. The prose was a lot more calm and there wasn't much of his dreamy metaphor. But then I read it in a different tone, since this is a travelogue and not fiction, and then I found its warmth and beauty. He's a great interviewer and with his fame, had access to a lot of the revolutionary leaders in a country of poets during the time of Reagan and Contra. Fascinating stuff.

As a U.S. citizen residing in Nicaragua, I expected to find The Jaguar Smile interesting and insightful. But I learned next to nothing and saw little in this book that resembled Nicaragua as I've experienced it.

I must admit Salman Rushdie enjoyed certain advantages over me. I've only lived in Nicaragua for a little over 4 years, most of which time I've spent in a rustic barrio of Jinotega, rubbing elbows with my Jinotegan neighbors. Trips to other parts of the country have been via crowded buses in close quarters with common folk. I've had no guide or translator.

Mr. Rushdie, by contrast, was an invited guest of the Sandinista Association of Cultural Workers. For 3 weeks he was flown and driven around Nicaragua by a select few politicians and journalists eager to impress upon him their own ideological viewpoints. He met and talked (via an interpreter usually) with local folk who were included in the planned agenda. Rushdie freely accepted or rejected at his own discretion the viewpoints he heard, and recorded his thoughts accordingly. He seems to have genuinely thought his experience to be a meaningful one.

So, if you want to learn what these Very Important Nicaraguans - and the Very Important Rushdie - were thinking and doing about 3 decades ago, you may enjoy The Jaguar Smile. I can't guarantee that you'll learn much about the real Nicaragua.

Mi amada Nicaragua

Me encantó su libro! Leyéndolo me hizo transportarse a aquéllos tempos en los cuales siendo una niña viví esa transición de gobiernos. Gracias

Read for class.

I wasn’t going to write a review and I’m still not really going to, but the epilogue was so beautifully written that I can’t just say nothing. It doesn’t surprise me to say I think Rushdie’s best insights were about the act of storytelling rather than about Nicaragua itself.

“History is lived forward but is written in retrospect. To live in the real world was to act without knowing the ending. The act of living a real life differed, I mused, from the act of making a fictional one, too, because you were stuck with your mistakes. No revisions, no second drafts.” (135)

“Unhappy endings might seem more realistic than happy ones, but reality often contained a streak of fantasy that realism lacked. In the real world, there were monsters and giants; but there was also the immeasurable power of the will. It was entirely possible that Nicaragua’s will to survive might prove stronger than the American weapons. We would just have to see.” (135)

Poets With AK-47s: A Political Jungle

Ok, so it is not really a jungle of politics, but it is presented in an unflinching one-sided opinion oriented style that can be summed up as follows:
1. Nicaragua has problems.
2. Well, nonviolence won't work for us right here and right now, so that means bloodshed is inevitable for us.
3. In this revolution, Sandinista is good and Contra is bad, because everybody knows the Contra are killing innocent people, while the Sandinista are justified in killing those they kill.
4. The US got involved (Carter, Reagan...Oliver North, etc.) and they took the side of the Contra so the US is on the wrong side.
5. So, who is at fault for all this bloodshed? The US is the problem.

Yes, Rushdie says all that and more. He goes further of course, and so did the US. The US sold weapons to supply the Contras, sanctioned Nicaragua economically, etc. Nicaragua sued the US. The US refused to pay when judgment was awarded to Nicaragua...

Honestly, it is clearly a one-sided treatise from a man from British India who spent 3 weeks in Nicaragua to ask a few people there what they thought about US involvement in the current situation. A proof-text, in other words. Let's take a vacation, find a few people who agree with me, and write a book.

Placing the one-sided journalism/ politics aside, :D the writing is fairly decent. And, he leaves the book with the question of whether or not you could see the Lady as Nicaragua and the Jaguar as Revolution itself; instead of seeing the Revolution as the Lady and the Jaguar as the US. (This refers to the old rhyme of the Lady of Niger riding on the back of the tiger and the smile is transferred to the tiger on her return trip. But, here he phrases it with Nicaragua and a Jaguar. Hence the book's title.) But, in the end there is no question which view he takes.

He attributes revolution and bloodshed, war, as a healthy part of the democratic process. I flinched at that description, especially considering the age he admits the boys go to fight. Then, there were the kidnapped and enslaved girls, ages 10-14, for the soldiers use. That's certainly not healthy.

There is much metaphor used that is very enjoyable, like 'understanding one's animal... the difference between a cow and a dog.' But, the only real view he gives of Nicaraguans is that of poets with Ak-47s, eating 'love eggs,' watching Huey, Duey, & Luey, and listening to Springsteen's Born in the USA.

How do I feel about reading it? I would totally read it again for the world view. It is revealing to see the world through the eyes of those with different opinions. I expected more... panache, more power to his writings from what I had heard. I could have gotten the same quality arguments down at the local VFW or Bingo Night for the old folks, depending on which side of the argument I listened to. The view was limited in scope to just the Contra era, so it is a bit dated and limited in view. But, I was looking for more about Nicaraguans themselves, or the country.

You would think the US would learn from Vietnam, if nothing else. It is not a great idea to get involved in foreign wars. That always backfires. My personal opinion is that if you want to help, then help with infrastructure, help with jobs, help with resources for peace. When you get involved in wars in the jungle, you are playing with jaguars. We should have never been riding that tiger's jaguar's back.

I read this in the Audible format, for my Journey Around the World in 80 Books for Nicaragua. From here, I will be traveling South to Costa Rica, riding on the back of a dinosaur. Yes. You guessed it... Jurassic Park. I've never read the book.

Rounding out my Nica reads. This is an interesting insight- a stream on consciuos perspective with a journalists eye.

Great read being in Nica. It's funny this is from 1986 and Daniel Ortega won his first real election and Salman was wondering what would become of him and the revolution. Well, almost 30 years later he's still the president and the revolution, well...