The Magic Hour/La Hora Mágica: A Photographer’s Journeys Through Cuba
Publication date: 23rd July 2026
In the early 1990s, during Cuba’s severe economic crisis known as the ‘Special Period’, photographer Lorenzo DeStefano set out on a seven-day journey across the island in a battered 1952 Willys Jeep. Travelling with his friend and driver Juan de Mata Montero Reyes, he documented a country in crisis – and the everyday resilience of the people he encountered. Featuring 123 striking black-and-white photographs, this bilingual English and Spanish edition chronicles DeStefano’s rugged, breakdown-plagued trip – from remote villagers to urban dwellers, Santería priests to underage prostitutes. The text and photographs illuminate this complex place and its resilient people.
Lorenzo’s friendship with Juan de Mata is at the centre of this book. Covering a variety of subjects including cars, women, politics and human rights, their road trip cements a deep, cross-cultural friendship between two men of different generations. Expanding beyond the personal to a true panoramic of contemporary Cuban life, keeping one eye on the viewfinder and the other on the reality he is photographing, he powerfully conveys his impressions, his bewilderment, and his anxiety as an American traveling under the radar of official government permission.
Hardback (ISBN 9781914278907)
eBook (ISBN 9781914278914)
“Lorenzo DeStefano has created a beautifully curated memoir of his travels crisscrossing Cuba in the 1990s. Told in arresting photographs, it is near impossible to turn away. The Magic Hour is a worthy addition to the histories of Cuba, most especially the grim days during the so-called Special Period, an Orwellian euphemism for years of steep austerity and privation.” (Ann Louis Bardach, author of Without Fidel and Cuba Confidential)
“Remarkable photographs that chronicle times Cubans hoped would never return, and in 2016 many thought never would.” (Dr Stephen Wilkinson, International Institute for the Study of Cuba)
"Lorenzo DeStefano has found an almost perfect moment to release 'The Magic Hour', his book of photographs and memories of his journeys across Cuba in the 1990s with his Cuban friend and driver, Juan de Mata Montero Reyes. Juan and Lorenzo’s trip cements their friendship while confronting daily breakdowns of Juan’s beat-up jeep. At the same time they meet spirited conversational Cubans who seem to like having their pictures taken. Cuba’s 'special period' after the collapse of the USSR meant confronting huge shortages and a stagnating economy. Tourism had not yet arrived to save the island. Today, in large part because of our own implacable policies toward Cuba, the Cuban people are facing even greater difficulties than in the 1990s—constant breakdowns of the country’s electrical grid, exacerbated by the U.S. cut-off of oil shipments to the island. This has left the Cuban people figuratively, and literally, in the dark. Yet, as DeStefano’s book shows, Cubans fight back in the worst of times as only they know how. Their resilience, intelligence and sense of humor carries them a long way toward solving the problems they confront. This portrait in time is a terrific stand-in for knowing the permanent Cuba. Long may she overcome! " (Sandra Levinson, Center for Cuban Studies, NYC)
https://keyt.com/lifestyle/travel/2026/03/15/the-magic-hour-puts-cuba-in-focus/
The Magic Hour/La Hora Mágica: A Photographer’s Journeys Through Cuba
Publication date: 23rd July 2026
In the early 1990s, during Cuba’s severe economic crisis known as the ‘Special Period’, photographer Lorenzo DeStefano set out on a seven-day journey across the island in a battered 1952 Willys Jeep. Travelling with his friend and driver Juan de Mata Montero Reyes, he documented a country in crisis – and the everyday resilience of the people he encountered. Featuring 123 striking black-and-white photographs, this bilingual English and Spanish edition chronicles DeStefano’s rugged, breakdown-plagued trip – from remote villagers to urban dwellers, Santería priests to underage prostitutes. The text and photographs illuminate this complex place and its resilient people.
Lorenzo’s friendship with Juan de Mata is at the centre of this book. Covering a variety of subjects including cars, women, politics and human rights, their road trip cements a deep, cross-cultural friendship between two men of different generations. Expanding beyond the personal to a true panoramic of contemporary Cuban life, keeping one eye on the viewfinder and the other on the reality he is photographing, he powerfully conveys his impressions, his bewilderment, and his anxiety as an American traveling under the radar of official government permission.
Hardback (ISBN 9781914278907)
eBook (ISBN 9781914278914)
“Lorenzo DeStefano has created a beautifully curated memoir of his travels crisscrossing Cuba in the 1990s. Told in arresting photographs, it is near impossible to turn away. The Magic Hour is a worthy addition to the histories of Cuba, most especially the grim days during the so-called Special Period, an Orwellian euphemism for years of steep austerity and privation.” (Ann Louis Bardach, author of Without Fidel and Cuba Confidential)
“Remarkable photographs that chronicle times Cubans hoped would never return, and in 2016 many thought never would.” (Dr Stephen Wilkinson, International Institute for the Study of Cuba)
"Lorenzo DeStefano has found an almost perfect moment to release 'The Magic Hour', his book of photographs and memories of his journeys across Cuba in the 1990s with his Cuban friend and driver, Juan de Mata Montero Reyes. Juan and Lorenzo’s trip cements their friendship while confronting daily breakdowns of Juan’s beat-up jeep. At the same time they meet spirited conversational Cubans who seem to like having their pictures taken. Cuba’s 'special period' after the collapse of the USSR meant confronting huge shortages and a stagnating economy. Tourism had not yet arrived to save the island. Today, in large part because of our own implacable policies toward Cuba, the Cuban people are facing even greater difficulties than in the 1990s—constant breakdowns of the country’s electrical grid, exacerbated by the U.S. cut-off of oil shipments to the island. This has left the Cuban people figuratively, and literally, in the dark. Yet, as DeStefano’s book shows, Cubans fight back in the worst of times as only they know how. Their resilience, intelligence and sense of humor carries them a long way toward solving the problems they confront. This portrait in time is a terrific stand-in for knowing the permanent Cuba. Long may she overcome! " (Sandra Levinson, Center for Cuban Studies, NYC)
https://keyt.com/lifestyle/travel/2026/03/15/the-magic-hour-puts-cuba-in-focus/
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