Eleven on Cuba
-- What Nat Hentoff Won’t Tell You

By Ann Sparanese (2004)

SRRT and the ALA Council had to deal with the issue of Cuba over the last two years, primarily be- cause of the arrests and convictions of individuals on the island calling themselves “independent librarians.” Trying to understand the situation in a country “so near and yet so far” from us requires more than average effort. It can’t all be summarized, let alone understood, with the words “Fidel Castro.”

Most Americans, even librarians, come to Cuba with a great deal of ignorance and misinformation. Because of the 40 year old embargo, the U.S. travel ban which prevents most U.S. citizens from traveling freely to Cuba, and the influence of the right-wing Miami Cuban institutions on American politics and – yes – publishing, it isn’t easy to find solid and fair-minded information about Cuba for library collections. It is nearly impossible to find such information from the Cuban point of view. And while much been asserted about “censorship” in Cuban libraries – for instance, why doesn’t every Cuban library have copies of 1984? – similar questions are not raised about why every U.S. library does not have volumes penned by Cuba’s fore- most national poets, Nancy Morejon or the late Nicholas Guillen? Does yours? Here are a few of my personal picks. All are recent and in print. If you can read only one this year, my recommendation would be Isaac Saney’s Cuba: A Revolution in Motion. If you love richly researched history, then do not miss Conflicting Missions by Piero Gleijesis.

Bardach, Ann Louise. Cuba Confidential: Love and Vengeance in Miami and Havana. Random House, 2002. (ISBN: 0375504893) Bardach writes frequently on Cuba for the L.A. Times and other publications. This book examines is- sues from both sides of the straits, beginning and ending with the case of Elian Gonzalez as being emblematic of the familial and political divide. Some of this book takes the personal and “family feud” analysis for hostili- ties a little too far, but readers will definitely get the skinny on the right-wing Miami crowd, include the terror- ist elements harbored by the Bush family there. It’s an absorbing read.

The Cuba Reader: History, Culture, Politics. Edited by Aviva Chomsky, Barry Carr and Pamela Maria Smorkaloff. Duke University Press, 2003. (ISBN:0822331977) This tome (part of a series of Latin American Readers by Duke) also covers the gamut: from Christo- pher Columbus’ comments upon “discovering” Cuba to “The Revolution Turns Forty” by Saul Landau. From pieces on sports, dance, race and religion in Cuba, to considerations of Cuban feminism, the role of sugar, and including writings by some of Cuba’s foremost artists and cultural workers, this encyclopedia volume has con- tributions from many points of view. From “Operation Mongoose” to the Venceremos Brigades, U.S.-Cuba relations are included. You can read Fidel Castro’s “History will Absolve Me” speech and Elizardo Sanchez’s “A Dissident Speaks Out” both in the same 700 pages.

Cuban Revolution Reader: A Documentary History. Edited by Julio Garcia Luis. Ocean Press, 2001. ISBN: 1876175109. Ocean is an unabashedly pro-Revolutionary Cuba press based in Australia. It specializes in reprinting the writings of Cuban revolutionary leaders and in exposing U.S. government aggressions towards Cuba as well as studies of different aspects of the Cuban Revolution. But this book is a collection of primary docu- ments on a variety of subjects and issues: speeches of Cuban leaders, documents from the Literacy Campaign, the Agrarian Reforms, reporting on hurricanes, ration cards, relations with Vietnam, Cuban laws and much more -- all the way up to the Pope’s visit in 1998. Franklin, Jane. Cuba and the United States: A Chronological History. Ocean Press, 1997. ISBN: 1875284923.

Still in print and in need of updating, but everything is here is “just the facts” of the relationship be- tween the two countries since the triumph of the Revolution. These facts set the stage for the problems between the two countries today.

Gleijeses, Piero. Conflicting Missions: Havana, Washington and Africa 1959-1976. University of North Carolina, 2003. (ISBN 0807854646) Cuba has had a long involvement with Africa, which culminated in their decisive assistance to Angola in defeating an invasion by the South African apartheid state in 1976. This Italian scholar has examines the actions and the motives of the Cubans in Africa, where Cuba found itself coming face to face with U.s. policy, including CIA covert operations. This is an astounding and brilliantly researched read, which challenges con- ventional wisdom about what the Cubans were really doing in Africa. (e.g. following the orders of the Soviet Union? Not.)

Hunter, Stephen. Havana. Simon & Schuster, 2003. ISBN: 074323808 Wow! An action-thriller, by a superb writer of this genre, set in the Havana in 1953, right before Fidel Castro and friends attacked the Moncada (Batista’s military garrison in Santiago de Cuba). And what a read!! Hunter’s got the atmosphere and politics of those days about right, even though he takes the liberties of fiction with history and character. But even though we know how it is going to turn out, the darn thing is a page turner and the author’s sympathies are…well, you decide.

Morejon, Nancy. Looking Within/Mirar Adentro: Selected Poems/Poemas Escogidos, 1954-2000. Wayne State University Press, 2003. (ISBN: 0814330371 and 081433038X pbk) This award-winning contemporary and internationally known Cuban poet is a Afro-Cuban feminist and a revolutionary. She directs the Caribbean Studies Center at the Casa De Las Americas, a center of Latin American literary activity. This is a bi-lingual edition of her work, anthologizing works from ten different col- lections and organized by theme.

Oltuski, Enrique. Vida Clandestina: My Life in the Cuban Revolution. Wiley, 2002. ISBN0-787961698. Oltuski, a middle class Cuban Jew and Miami-educated engineer, was actually working for Shell Oil when he was recruited into the 26 th of July Movement. He became a leader in the clandestine urban under- ground struggle, and now works in the Ministry of Fisheries. His easy-going memoir demonstrates how revolu- tionaries were made of the most unlikely individuals.

Roman, Peter. People’s Power: Cuba’s Experience with Representative Government. Updated versions, Roman and Littlefield, 2003. (ISBN: 0742525651) Americans think they know how the Cuban government works, but they don’t. What is usually re- ferred to as the “Castro Regime” actually has elected municipal, provincial and national assemblies. The book describes and analyzes the Cuban parliamentary system, with an emphasis on the municipal levels, from the beginning of People’s Power in the 1970’s up to the present time. It dissects the role of the Communist Party and brings the reader into the nominating processes that go on in the neighborhoods and workplaces. Saney, Isaac. Cuba: A Revolution in Motion. Zed, 2004 . (ISBN 1842773631) Canadian writers bring a whole lot less baggage to the issue of Cuba than Americans do. This book is up-to-the minute look at Cuban society, with chapters on many aspects of life in contemporary Cuba, including the issue of the dissidents.

Sweig, Julia . Inside the Cuban Revolution: Fidel Castro and the Urban Underground. Harvard University Press, 2002. (ISBN: 0674008480) Recently, the Cuban government has been allowing certain writers and scholars first-time access to previously secret records of the 26th th of July Movement and the archives of the revolutionary government. Sweig reveals the tension between the urban underground and the mountain-based guerrilla movements during the struggle to topple the Batista government and provides another look at the process which usually focuses on the rural guerrilleros.
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from:
SRRT (Social Responsibilities Round Table) newsletter
June 2004 Issue 146/147