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The Prison Letters of Fidel Castro



Ann Louise Bardach
May 2007     ISBN: 1560259833

As world grapples with the question of what an ailing Fidel Castro means for Cuba, comes the publication of this historic first English publication of his letters from prison.

Early in Ann Louise Bardach's Cuban voyage she came across Cartas del Presidio or The Prison Letters of Fidel Castro. Edited by Luis Conte Ag�ero, who was the recipient of most of these letters, they are cited in every important work from Hugh Thomas' opus Cuba to Tad Szulc's Fidel biography, and everything in between and since.

These twenty-one letters (nine to Conte Ag�ero, six to his late sister and close collaborator, Lidia, one to his wife Mirta, one to his comrade in combat, Melba Hernandez letters, one to the great scholar Jorge Manach) are regarded as the single most valuable and revelatory document regarding Fidel Castro and the Cuban Revolution.

Never before published in English, The Prison Letters of Fidel Castro--written when Castro was imprisoned for his failed attack on the Moncada from 1953 to 1955--reveal a man of spectacular ambition and steely determination. A man who, despite being incarcerated to serve a lengthy prison term, never wavers in his confidence that he will one day rule Cuba.

Read the original Prologue to The Prison Letters of Fidel Castro, written by Luis Conte Ag�ero, in Spanish and English, here.

Read the Introduction to The Prison Letters of Fidel Castro, in English and Spanish, here.

About the Authors

Ann Louise Bardach is a prize-winning journalist who has written extensively on Cuba and Miami for national media including the New York Times, Washington Post, Vanity Fair, Los Angeles Times, The Atlantic Monthly, and Slate. She is the author of Cuba Confidential: Love and Vengeance in Miami and Havana (Random House/Vintage), an acclaimed account of the complex and tense relationships between Cuba, Miami and Washington. She lives in California.

Read a profile of Ann Louise Bardach in the Columbia Journalism Review here.
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