The Autobiography of Fidel Castro

An audacious biography of the ex-president of Cuba told in Castros own outrageous, bombastic voice. Prize-winning author and journalist Norberto Fuentes was once a revolutionary: a writer with privileged access to Fidel Castros inner circle during some the most challenging years of the revolution. But in the late 1990s, as the regime began sending its oldest comrades to the firing squad, he became A Man Who Knew Too Much. Escaping a death sentence and now living in exile, Fuentes has written a brilliant, satirical, and utterly captivating autobiography of the Cuban leaderin Fidels own arrogant and seductive languagediscussing everything from Castros early sexual experiences in Birn to his true feelings about Che Guevara and his philosophy on murder, legacy, and state secrets. Critics have long admired Fuentess writing; one U.S. article called him Norman Mailers Cuban pen pal. Akin to Gertrude Steins The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas, or Edmund Morriss Dutch, this wickedly entertaining, true-to-life masterpiece is as imaginative and outsized as Castro himself.