The Atlas Obscura Podcast
The Atlas Obscura Podcast
SiriusXM and Atlas Obscura
The Cigar “Readers” of Cuba
24 minutes Posted Jul 3, 2025 at 4:05 am.
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Show notes
If you were to visit a cigar factory in Cuba, you’d hear something unexpected: the sound of the daily news report, or maybe a poem or a novel, being read aloud. The cigar “reader” is a tradition held by just a handful of people, and it came from a fundamentally revolutionary idea. Eliot Stein, author of Custodians of Wonder, joins Dylan to explain.