Castro

Few personalities of the 20th century have had such a polarising effect or can look back on such an eventful and contradictory life as the former Cuban revolutionary and head of state, Fidel Castro. Reinhard Kleist portrays the Máximo Líder’s world-changing life with intense energy: from the young Fidel’s first attempt to incite a workers’ uprising on his father’s finca, to his victorious revolution against the Batista regime, the CIA’s failed Bay of Pigs invasion and the Cuban Missile Crisis, right up to the decades of deprivation and the persecution of political dissenters who, in increasing opposition to Castro’s ideals, appeared to stand for a more just society.

In 2008 I went to Cuba to do some research for this book. The well received travel book “Havanna” was a result from this journey and the reader will find some details from it in the Castro book as well. The preface is written by Castro-biographer and journalist Volker Skierka, who helped with the text as well. The book appeared in Germany in autumn 2010 and has already been translated into English (US and UK), Greek, Turkish, Dutch, Italian, Spanish, Portugues, French, Kroatian and Chinese.