The best biographies that peek behind Cuban myths

José Martí is Cuba’s secular saint who represents all things to all Cubans. He was the idol of Cuba’s first generation to come of age in independent Cuba, during the 1920s, who were taught he was a Christ-like figure who sacrificed himself for Cuban independence. Fulgencio Batista adored him, Fidel Castro revered him, and anti-communist Cuban exiles worshiped him. Even so, Martí was largely unknown on the island during his lifetime and at the time of his death in 1895. This biography of Martí depicts him as a human as well as a hero. 

Fulgencio Batista is an all-purpose villain in post-1959 Cuba. On the island, he is portrayed as a corrupt and bloody despot who ignored prostitution in towns, desperation in the countryside, and gave free reign to U.S. companies, American tourists, and the mafia. Cuban exiles, many of whom prospered during his rule, see things differently. Cuba counted a large middle class, access to American cars and radios, and one of the highest literacy rates in Latin America. Argote-Freyre’s biography adds much-needed complexity. Batista was a self-made man, born in poverty, and racially mixed. He rose to a  position of power via smarts, cunning, and ruthlessness but also preserved legal gains for workers, and used the military to provide educational and medical services for poor Cubans. 

To some, Cuba is a plucky, embargo-defying success story, with top educational and medical systems – the latter of which ensures Cubans live longer on average than Americans. Hoffman’s biography of Oswaldo Payá lays bare the regime’s darkest depths. As a young man, Payá was harassed and persecuted for his Catholic faith. He later devised the Varela Project, which sought to legally change Cuba’s 1976 constitution and allow democratic freedoms. Payá remained an outspoken critic of Cuba’s one-party state and refused to leave despite constant threats from state security agents. In 2012, they ran his car off the road and he was killed in the ensuing crash.  

Foreign ventures, typically U.S.-owned, dominated Cuba’s pre-1959 economy. They often gouged Cuban consumers, mistreated Cuban employees, meddled in politics, and supported dictators. The  Bacardí Company, by contrast, was an innovative, well-run, and homegrown success story that relied on Cuban capital and expertise. The company also looked after its workers, offering retirement and sick pay, and an eight-hour workday before being legally obliged. In addition, Bacardí provided housing loans and profit-sharing options. Bacardí executives were noted for their honesty and competence. For this reason, Bacardí Chairman Pepín Bosch was recruited by President Carlos Prío to serve as his treasury minister. 

This is only a biography in the loosest sense, one of Afro-Cubans from the year slavery was abolished until an ugly racial massacre that claimed thousands of innocent victims. In 1892, José Martí famously declared that “There is no racial hatred because there are no races.” The following year he wrongly predicted that “In Cuba, there will never be a racial war.” Cuba’s independence myth was founded on the idea that there would be no white or black Cubans, only Cubans. Yet in 1912, two Afro-Cuban politicians, Pedro Ivonet and Evaristo Estenoz, both veterans of Cuba’s independence struggle, some of their followers, and thousands of Afro-Cubans in the wrong place at the wrong time, were massacred in a frenzy of racial hatred.