The Jaguar's Smile

The Jaguar's Smile (1987) is Salman Rushdie’s first nonfiction book about his visit to Nicaragua in the heat of the battle communist Sandinistas versus the US government backed Contras. It is a curious book since it reads like a personal essay that exposes Rushdie’s political leanings, literary tastes and discoveries made in Nicaragua, as well as part travelogue. Rushdie is sympathetic to the cause, but also cautious and skeptical and he doesn’t swallow everything that is told or shown to him. But one can sense that he is rooting for the underdog to succeed in this case and it is easy to say why. America’s paranoia of communism-even freely elected communist or socialist states were unfairly attacked throughout the cold war and this was one of the more ignoble fights-against puny little Nicaragua. However, by 1990 the Sandanistas were outed.