| Description |
v, 723 pages, 32 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations (some color), map ; 24 cm |
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regular print |
| Contents |
"Castro talks proudly of increasing life expectancy in Cuba (now longer than in the United States); of the half million students in Cuban universities; and of the training of seventy thousand Cuban doctors, nearly half of whom work abroad, assisting the poor in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. He is confronted with a number of thorny issues, including democracy and human rights, discrimination toward homosexuals, and the continuing presence of the death penalty on Cuban statute books |
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Along the way he shares intimacies about more personal matters: the benevolent strictness of his father, his successful attempt to give up cigars, his love of Ernest Hemingway's novels, and his calculation that by not shaving he saves up to ten working days each year." "Drawing on more than one hundred hours of interviews with Ignacio Ramonet, a knowledgeable and trusted interlocutor, this spoken autobiography will stand as the definitive record of an extraordinary life lived in turbulent times." |
| Summary |
In these pages, Castro narrates a compelling chronicle that spans the harshness of his elementary school teachers; the early failures of the revolution; his intense comradeship with Che Guevara and their astonishing, against-all-odds victory over the dictator Batista; the Cuban perspective on the Bay of Pigs and the ensuing missile crisis; the active role of Cuba in African independence movements (especially its large military involvement in fighting apartheid South Africa in Angola); his relations with prominent public figures such as Boris Yeltsin, Pope John Paul II, and Saddam Hussein; and his dealings with no less than ten successive American presidents, from Eisenhower to George W. Bush." "Castro talks proudly of increasing life expectancy in Cuba (now longer than in the United States); of the half million students in Cuban universities; and of the training of seventy thousand Cuban doctors, nearly half of whom work abroad, assisting the poor in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. He is confronted with a number of thorny issues, including democracy and human rights, discrimination toward homosexuals, and the continuing presence of the death penalty on Cuban statute books. Along the way he shares intimacies about more personal matters: the benevolent strictness of his father, his successful attempt to give up cigars, his love of Ernest Hemingway's novels, and his calculation that by not shaving he saves up to ten working days each year." "Drawing on more than one hundred hours of interviews with Ignacio Ramonet, a knowledgeable and trusted interlocutor, this spoken autobiography will stand as the definitive record of an extraordinary life lived in turbulent times."--BOOK JACKET |
| Notes |
Translation of: Fidel Castro : Biographia a dos voces first published in Spanish by Random House Mondadori 2006 |
| Bibliography |
Includes bibliographic references (pages 663-648) and index |
| Notes |
Translated from the Spanish |
| Subject |
Castro, Fidel, 1926-2016.
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Castro, Fidel, 1926-2016 -- Interviews.
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Heads of state -- Cuba -- Biography.
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Heads of state -- Cuba -- Interviews.
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| SUBJECT |
Cuba -- History -- 1933-1959. http://id.loc.gov/authorities/subjects/sh85034583
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Cuba -- History -- 1959-1990. http://id.loc.gov/authorities/subjects/sh85034587
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Cuba -- History -- 1990- http://id.loc.gov/authorities/subjects/sh2005008294
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| Genre/Form |
Biographies.
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Interviews.
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| Author |
Hurley, Andrew, 1944-
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Ramonet, Ignacio.
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| LC no. |
2008399076 |
| ISBN |
0713999209 hardback |
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