Blurring the boundaries between fiction and non-fiction, and possibly placing great reliance on hearsay, Cuban author Norberto Fuentes arrogates to himself Fidel Castro's outstanding memory and, writing in first person, recounts the dictator's life from birth to 2001.
In Chapter 1, Castro/Fuentes declares: "I may even be the most acclaimed man in the history of the world … and even the most courageous." In Chapter 19, alluding to how his physical appearance counterbalanced his politics: "Who cared if this rosy-cheeked, thin-bearded, Greek-profiled, olive-green uniformed, calf-length-booted, tall as Gulliver son of gallegos with a long stride and enormous [obscenity]bulging through his pants was a Communist?"
Having lived from birth to 62 on the island, I can attest that many Cubans characterize Castro's ego as colossal. But he is so concerned with his place in history that I'm sure he would never pronounce in public such vainglorious words. It is possible, however, that while surrounded by sycophants at a private party, after a cocktail or two, he'd half-jokingly say such things.
For a number of years Fuentes attended pretty exclusive gatherings. Pictures show him in the company of Fidel and Raúl Castro, Army General Arnaldo Ochoa (executed in 1989), Politburo member Carlos Lage (purged in 2009) and Colonel Antonio de la Guardia (also executed in 1989). Fuentes, if not a sycophant, rubbed elbows with them and had access. Every intimate confidant has access, yet hundreds who have access never grow to be intimate confidants. Staff and disciples feed on and disseminate hearsay.
Because of the elite groups that Fuentes frequented, Castro's character and what he has revealed in speeches, it is possible that some comments are spot on. For example: "Communism is what allowed me to insert the country into world history. If we had not inserted ourselves in the context of the most encompassing and expensive confrontation in the history of humanity, we wouldn't have been anything more than a memory - if even a memory - of a quick slap of the Americans."
In view of the present state of world affairs, the following quote might prove true these days: "Applying the Pentagon's logistic rules to a revolutionary enterprise is a strategic error. But it's their nature, and it happens because they don't understand the nature of barbarians."
Fuentes was incarcerated in 1989. Gabriel García Márquez, the Colombian Nobel Prize-winner, interceded with Castro and gained his release. Soon after, the author went into exile with a big axe to grind - and started writing.
Twenty-five hundred pages later, Fuentes finished La Autobiografía de Fidel Castro, two tomes in Spanish condensed into one fourth that length in English translation. This may be why references to industrialization, agriculture, education, health care, sports and other topics are lacking. Or perhaps Fuentes didn't dwell on those.
This work of fiction is also a painstakingly researched non-fiction book, which adds verisimilitude and muddies the waters to the point that even participants in political rallies, military mobilizations and other events recounted often wonder, "Is this fact or fantasy?"
Although Fuentes asserts that he "has avoided mention of any event of which confirmation, besides his own testimony, is inaccessible," credibility is at issue on numerous occasions.
He makes Castro affirm, for instance, that he "found everything out" about president John F. Kennedy's assassination, that he alerted the Americans "to my knowledge and telling them that, as a guarantee, the information is secured in other secret depositories placed many years ago in God knows what corner of the planet. … Ever since then I've enjoyed that incontrovertible life insurance. It extends to my family."
Suspending disbelief to accept that Castro knows who arranged the murder and has blackmailed the Americans, I doubt that he would've shared such earth-shattering confidence with the author. Fuentes would still be behind bars if he had, or out on parole in the best of circumstances. Unless the whole thing is pure and simple disinformation.
The author debunks or contradicts numerous beliefs, like the established opinion that Castro and Che Guevara forged a brotherly bond. "I undertook the task of involving Che in an expedition. I had to get rid of him. The island was too small for the two of us."
There may be a measure of truth in this. Che was the only person in Cuba's corridors of power who possessed the intellect, revolutionary credentials and firmness of character needed to confront Castro when political and military strategies were debated. The word is they had serious disagreements over the Sino-Soviet split and revolutions in Latin America and Africa.
The book's greatest shortcoming is the lack of analysis and commentary on economics and finance. Perhaps W.W. Norton expunged those chapters from the original in Spanish, or Castro never discussed those issues, or Fuentes knows little about the single most important reason for the abysmal failure of the Cuban revolution.
Had Castro been the most brilliant, patriotic, honest and well-intentioned man on the planet, he would've sentenced the revolution to death the day he enforced Communism. The severe restriction or elimination of private property, individual initiative and entrepreneurship that Marxism-Leninism imposes, and its all-out attack against acquisitiveness and the aspiration to live better, begot a collective nosedive into poverty in each and every one of the so-called socialist countries. Castro disregarded the foundations on which all political systems and parties must build: freedom and prosperity for as many people as possible.
In sum, this book portrays Fidel Castro as the most eloquent, authoritarian, cunning, ruthless and paranoid dictator in Latin American history. A man who placed the human race on the brink of nuclear annihilation. A man who killed, executed or sent to prison dozens of patriots who fought at his side when he professed to be a democrat, and turned against him after he revealed his true colours. A man who sank his country in a bottomless pit of repression and poverty. A man who failed.
José Latour, a Cuban-Canadian writer, has lived in Toronto since 2004.