The Sugar King of Havana

The Rise and Fall of Julio Lobo, Cuba's Last Tycoon

By: John Paul Rathbone

Narrated by: Simon Vance

Length: 8 hrs and 46 mins

Publisher's summary

Fifty years after the Cuban revolution, the legendary wealth of the sugar magnate Julio Lobo remains emblematic of a certain way of life that came to an abrupt end when Fidel Castro marched into Havana. Known in his day as the King of Sugar, Lobo was for decades the most powerful force in the world sugar market, controlling vast swaths of the island's sugar interests. Born in 1898, the year of Cuba's independence, Lobo's extraordinary life mirrors, in almost lurid technicolor, the many rises and final fall of the troubled Cuban republic.

The details of Lobo's life are fit for Hollywood. He twice cornered the international sugar market and had the largest collection of Napoleonica outside of France, including the emperor's back teeth and death mask. He once faced a firing squad only to be pardoned at the last moment, and he later survived a gangland shooting. He courted movie stars from Bette Davis to Joan Fontaine and filled the swimming pool at his sprawling estate with perfume when Esther Williams came to visit.

As Rathbone observes, such are the legends of which revolutions are made and later justified. But Lobo was also a progressive and a philanthropist, and his genius was so widely acknowledged that Che Guevara personally offered him the position of minister of sugar in the Communist regime. When Lobo declined---knowing that their worldviews could never be compatible---his properties were nationalized, most of his fortune vanished overnight, and he left the island, never to return to his beloved Cuba. Financial Times journalist John Paul Rathbone has been fascinated by this intoxicating, whirligig, and contradictory prerevolutionary period his entire life. His mother was also a member of Havana's storied haute bourgeoisie and a friend of Lobo's daughters.

©2010 John Paul Rathbone (P)2010 Tantor

Critic reviews

"An exceptionally rich portrait not only of an empire and its progenitor but Cuba itself, and the economic legacy of Castro's revolution, the loss of capital, and the end of Cuba's 'great age of sugar.'" ( Publishers Weekly)

Great book

One of the best books about the quixotic island nation. Rathbone looks on as an outsider, but with an inheritance of exile. His desire to understand and to rationalize the Cuban experience is factually informative but also quite heartfelt. He happens to be a very good writer as well.

The very best reading of a book have heard thus far

Mr Vance captured not only the various accents/fluency required but also the inuendos, humor and such as though he was the author which is essential to conveying this excellent and fascinating story and a fascinating slice of the history of Cuba and its importance and potential to the world

VERY INFORMATIVE

Where does The Sugar King of Havana rank among all the audiobooks you???ve listened to so far?

Absolutely amongst the top 20.

What did you like best about this story?

It had a lot of accurate information about what Cuba was like prior to Castro.

What did you like about the performance? What did you dislike?

Not to be demanding but the Spanish pronounciation of the reader was atrocious. Even the simplest Spanish words were mangled. It was distracting.

Did you have an extreme reaction to this book? Did it make you laugh or cry?

It made me nostalgic for the Cuba I knew as a child.

Any additional comments?

A

History as I remember

This rendition of a Cuban historical character resonates far more with the historical facts I lived and learned from as a child…, although the initial history lesson seemed a mirror image of other books the content was rich in the depiction of what the culture was like of a time that will never return!

Fascinating book

Nothing but a great read from beginning to end,difficult to put down... I strongly recomend it