The Prison Letters of Fidel Castro

Early in Ann Louise Bardach's Cuban voyage she came across Cartas de Presidio or The Prison Letters of Fidel Castro. Edited by Luis Conte Aguero, who was the recipient of most of these letters, they are cited in every important work from Hugh Thomas's opus Cuba to Tad Szule's Fidel biography, and everything in between and since. These eighteen letters (nine to Conte Aguero; six to his late sister and close collaborator, Lidia; one to his wife, Mirta; one to his comrade in combat, Melba Hernandez; 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. These candid documents reveal the man who transformed an island famous for sugar, rum, and sin into a world player. For those who were baffled by the passion and tenacity of the battle waged by Fidel Castro for the return of Elian Gonzalez--fueled by his forty-five-year determination to triumph over the United States--many of the answers lie in these letters.