Source: Photo by ©Iván Giménez (Tusquets Editores) on inside cover flap of El hombre que amaba a los perros.Tusquets, Barcelona: Doubleday and Company, 2009.
Image: A photo of Leonardo Padura Fuentes used as publicity for the above-mentioned novel by him.
Comments: Leonardo Padura is one of Cuba's most celebrated twenty-first century writers (journalism, essay, film scripts, short stories, novels). His most famous works are a quartet of detective novels each of which is based on one of the four seasons of the year. His most extensive novel (600 pages) is El hombre que amaba a los perros (2009) / The Man Who Loved Dogs, which deals with the assassination of Leon Trotsky (Joseph Stalin's communist arch rival and nemesis) by Ramón Mercader in Coyoacán, Mexico City, in 1940.
Humanities Questions: What is this photograph by Iván Giménez communicating? How do you interpret this humanities object? Who sponsored and supported Trotsky's stay in México? What prominent figures in our course were also living in Coyoacán? What political position do you think Padura may be taking in his fictional history of the assassination of Trotsky by a Spanish anarchist?