My Life by Fidel Castro
A Review of the New Spoken Autobiography of the Cuban Leader
Compiled from over one hundred hours of interviews with Spanish journalist Ignacio Ramonet, My Life is the long-awaited autobiography by Fidel Castro.
Before his retirement in 2008, Fidel Castro had been leader of Cuba for nearly half a century and he is certainly one of the most polarising political figures of modern times. While Castro is admired by many as a successful revolutionary, visionary and opponent of globalisation, others revile him as a dictator who fiercely controls the lives of his people. Whatever view is taken of the career of Fidel Castro, he has been central to some of the most important people and events of the twentieth century and so his autobiography is an intriguing and important historical resource.
An Autobiographical Conversation
My Life is an unusual autobiography in that it is a record of Castro’s oral testimony complied from over one hundred hours of conversation and is presented throughout as a question and answer session between Castro and noted Spanish journalist Ignacio Ramonet. Ramonet conducted his interviews with Castro between 2003 and 2005, a period during which Castro was still incredibly active on both the national and international political scene, when it seemed that a series of guided conversations were the best method of getting Castro to produce an autobiography.
The Life and Times of Fidel Castro
My Life is an expansive book that follows the life and career of Fidel Castro from his childhood through to his declining health in 2005. Early chapters cover the situation of Castro’s parents and the family life that he grew up in as well as the activities of his youth and his meeting with Che Guevara. Later, Castro details his interpretation of the 1959 Cuban revolution, the overthrow of Batista and the establishment of the socialist regime.
Although the long wait for Castro’s personal views on recent Cuban history makes all of My Life highly absorbing, it is particularly interesting when Castro turns his attention to the international sphere, both to Cuba’s actions within the international community and to the opinions that have been offered about Cuba by foreign commentators. During his time as leader, Castro has had dealings with ten U.S. Presidents, withstood the Bay of Pigs invasion and the subsequent U.S. blockade, formed an alliance with the Soviet Union that eventually led to the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962, survived the fall of the Soviet Union and continued to oppose the spread of globalisation. Castro has also maintained cordial relations with many world leaders and notable personalities.
My Life also provides some highly interesting statistical information about the contribution that Cuba is making on the international political scene that is often ignored. For example, Cuba has more doctors per head of the population than any other country and has sent medical professionals to assist in seventy-nine countries.
Castro is fiercely proud of the situation in Cuba itself. Although ignoring the destruction of the middle classes that happened after the revolution, Castro praises the undeniably impressive rates of literacy amongst Cubans and the success of their social welfare scheme. Undeniably, Castro looks on Cuba through rose-tinted spectacles but he still provides a unique perspective on post revolution life in the country.
A Controlled Account
In the introduction, Ramonet acknowledges two compromises that had to be made in the production of My Life.
Castro retained the right to fully edit and augment the final draft so that the English language edition was a significantly revised version of the original Spanish language version that was published in 2006. Ramonet cites Castro’s decision to alter his description of Saddam Hussein in the wake of the Iraqi leader’s capture as an example of the changes that were made. However, although last minute changes mean that My Life is not a wholly spoken autobiography, the subject of an autobiography impliedly has the right of revision over the material they produce about themselves and so Castro’s decision to make alterations is not particularly unusual.
More disappointing is Ramonet’s acknowledgment that “it never crossed my mind that we should speak about Castro’s personal life”. Information about the subject’s private life is often seen as an essential element of any biography and would have been highly valuable in this case in providing further insight into Castro’s character and motivation.
Despite the reams of information and misinformation that have been written about Fidel Castro his actions and his nature have remained rather mysterious and for that reason, My Life is one of the most important political autobiographies produced in the past few years. Whatever conclusions are ultimately made able Castro himself, he has been a hugely influential character on the international scene for decades and his autobiography provides a fascinating insight into important political events and social changes during the twentieth century.
My Life by Fidel Castro
ISBN 978-0141026268, Penguin Books Ltd, 2008, £12.99, pp736
