Unpardonable Crimes

Unpardonable Crimes: The Legacy of Fidel Castro presents a series of stories that, although written as fiction, are based on real events told author Celestino Heres by his family and friends. Everyone has a story to tell, and oftentimes there is a story behind a story. Many of the events that actually occurred in Cuba prior to, during, and after the Revolution might never have been made public; this collection attempts to counteract that secrecy. The first story, "From Buchenwald to Connecticut," is the story of Heres's father-in-law, Raul, a jewelry manufacturer in Cuba. "Bitter Victory" was related to Heres by his two dearest friends, who suffered imprisonment in Castro's gulag. The rest of the tales were born from the myriad conversations he had with many Cuban friends over more than forty years. As is often the case with stories of war, many stories of the Cuban people will go to the graves with the men and women who lived them, like footprints in the sand after the rising of the tide. This collection demonstrates the common threads of the struggle of Cubans to survive under the cruel oppression of Fidel Castro and Fidel's betrayal of his own people.