Taking part in the Cuban Revolution's first armed action in 1953, enduring the torture and killings of her brother and fiancé, assuming a leadership role in the underground movement, and smuggling weapons into Cuba, Haydée Santamaría was the only woman to participate in every phase of the Revolution. Virtually unknown outside of Cuba, Santamaría was a trusted member of Fidel Castro's inner circle and friend of Che Guevara. Following the Revolution's victory Santamaría founded and ran the cultural and arts institution Casa de las Americas, which attracted cutting-edge artists, exposed Cubans to some of the world's greatest creative minds, and protected queer, black, and feminist artists from state repression. Santamaría's suicide in 1980 caused confusion and discomfort throughout Cuba; despite her commitment to the Revolution, communist orthodoxy's disapproval of suicide prevented the Cuban leadership from mourning and celebrating her in the Plaza of the Revolution. In this impressionistic portrait of her friend Haydée Santamaría, Margaret Randall shows how one woman can help change the course of history.

Review

"Haydée Santamaría, Cuban Revolutionary is essential reading for all involved in the struggles for social justice, and for those devoted to literature, the arts, and imagination as a core ingredient in realizing another world. In Margaret Randall's literary hands, Haydée is a study of an ordinary, yet remarkable woman redefining herself through commitment to revolutionary change and to the people she loved. It is also a magnificent and sorrowful meditation on revolution, loss, gender, and art. A major and outstanding book."

(Bernardine Dohrn, activist, academic and clinical law professor, retired)

"In her personal and passionate book, Margaret Randall dares to speak out about the pained silence surrounding Haydée Santamaría, perhaps the most important female figure of the Cuban revolution. Drawing on archives, interviews, memories, and imagination, Randall brings this complex woman to life, both to honor her quiet idealism and to mourn her death by suicide, which made it impossible for her to be seen as a proper national hero. This book opens the door to much-needed scholarship about the trauma suffered by women who sought to bring about social transformations on the island."

(Ruth Behar, author of Traveling Heavy: A Memoir in between Journeys)

"Santamaría’s story is one which should be told, and Randall does so vividly and insightfully."

(Publishers Weekly)

“[T]he past is sometimes hard to put away, as Randall’s loving elegy to Haydée Santamaría shows. … Her life story demonstrates the heavy costs that prolonged revolutionary struggles can extract even from their apparent victors. A feminist sensibility adds poignancy to Randall’s tender, impressionistic portrait of a self-effacing and melancholic yet much revered Cuban fighter.”

(Richard Feinberg Foreign Affairs 2015-09-01)

“Margaret Randall brings a poet’s voice to her work. She captures history, gleans it from correspondence, interviews, and research, but imbues it with an uncommon lyrical quality. … Both of Randall’s recent books make Cuba come alive. These books are well timed with the restoration of diplomatic relations and the easing of travel restrictions. They convey the vibrant history of revolutionary change. They also give human dimensions to the heroes of that revolution, reminding us what they risked, the losses they suffered, and what they were able to achieve.”

(Alice Embree The Rag Blog 2015-09-01)

“The life of Haydée Santamaría was divided between a few days of heroism and decades of bureaucratic toil. A new biography by the poet and activist Margaret Randall, who knew and loved her, tells stories of courage and sacrifice that sometimes make her sound too amazing to be true.”

(Lorna Scott Fox Bookforum 2015-09-15)