From the annotation to the first edition (M.: Society "Istoki", 1990.) The book was written in 1972, but its first publication became possible only in our time. At the center of the story are the adventures of a military translator, secretly sent by the General Staff to Cuba on the eve of the missile adventure, when the island became a powder keg. A premonition of death pushes him to seek oblivion in Cuban brothels, where he meets a girl who persuades the hero to flee the communist paradise, but falls under the hood of military intelligence and is urgently expelled from the Island. At home, the KGB takes control of him. However, under a fresh impression, he secretly creates the stories “Our Man in Havana” (Russian version) and “Alice in the Land of the Soviets,” which leads to tragicomic situations.