Haydee Santamaria: Rebel Lives

Haydée Santamaría led a full and painful life. One of a handful of Cuba’s female revolutionary leaders, she suffered torture in Batista’s prisons. After 1959, she established the world-renowned Latin American literary institution, Casa de las Americas. Its director for 20 years, Haydée provided intellectual and physical refuge for artists and writers in exile from Latin American dictatorships.

Among those who pay tribute to Santamaría here are Gabriel García Márquez, Mario Benedetti and Roque Dalton.

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"We were born into an unjust system. We are not prepared to grow old in it."—Bernadette Devlin

Rebel Lives books feature writings both by and about individuals who have played significant roles in humanity’s ongoing fight for a better world. The series shows the not-so-well-recognized political views of some well-known figures and introduces some not-so-famous rebels. Strongly representative of race, class and gender, these books are smaller format, inexpensive, accessible and provocative.