What do you think?
Rate this book
In the Fist of the Revolution: Life in Castro's Cuba
Yglesias, Jose, In The Fist Of The Life In A Cuban Country Town
- GenresHistory
304 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1968
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
June 11, 2021
Viva Cuba Libre, o No, Como Sea
In 1964 I spent three months working in a Honduran village. What I learned there has stayed with me all my life. The poverty accompanied a government that did very little for its people. Education, health, transport, security and even three square meals were not guaranteed, to say the least. Large American companies could do what they wanted, up to replacing “reluctant” presidents. Let’s expand our gaze to include Guatemala and El Salvador and move up to today. What is the situation in these three countries? Read the news, folks. Gangs, murders, drugs, two civil wars in the last half century, corruption at the highest levels, people fleeing, compounded by natural disasters. I know a fair bit about the Soviet Union and its former satellites in eastern Europe—not exactly paradise either. Cuba’s revolution in 1959 turned them onto a Soviet path without the tremendous number of murders perhaps. I have not been to Cuba. I have only one Cuban friend. But when I look at Cuba today and compare it to those three unfortunate countries to the west of the island, I perceive a tremendous difference. Cubans can get educated, they have a good health care system in which citizens live slightly longer than in the USA, the number of Cuban doctors is amazing—they have worked in many poorer parts of the world. Cuban sport achievements are legendary and their record in art, music, and other cultural fields is good. Despite their treatment of dissenters and homosexuals, despite a gulag of some size, I’d have to say that it would be far better to be born a Cuban than anyone outside the richest classes of the three Central American countries. Cuba used to be the whorehouse and casino of the Americas. For a long time it hasn’t been. How did this all come about?
Well, nobody is going to explain that in one review! And not even in one book. José Yglesias, an American, went to Cuba for a few months back in 1967 on an assignment from Pantheon Books as part of their excellent series about villages or towns around the world in those years. He wound up in Mayarí, a town of 8,000 people in eastern Cuba. He wrote an excellent account of what he saw, whom he met, and what they said. He visited schools, clinics, bars, a giant sugar mill, party offices, and a court, and talked to everybody in his fluent Spanish. He is able to convey the flavor of Cuban conversation quite well and paint portraits of everyone from mayors to waitresses and malcontent teenagers. He wasn’t prevented from talking to anyone. Perhaps he had a penchant for superfluous detail in his wish to portray Cuba as accurately and fairly as possible. He didn’t swallow any propaganda, he didn’t try to whitewash the problems or faults of the Revolution. He told the people there that he wanted to write the truth as he saw it and I believe he definitely did. Cuba was no “socialist paradise”. It was poor and they were struggling, but at that time, idealism and patriotism were running high. People were looking forward to a better life and I believe that—compared to Honduras or El Salvador—they got it. Things were already looking up. I am not a believer in Communism; it seems to me that the Soviet system was more murderous, totalitarian and tacky than “socialist”. But I would advise you, before you jump down my throat for being naïve, to read this very clear and honest picture of a society in flux.
In 1964 I spent three months working in a Honduran village. What I learned there has stayed with me all my life. The poverty accompanied a government that did very little for its people. Education, health, transport, security and even three square meals were not guaranteed, to say the least. Large American companies could do what they wanted, up to replacing “reluctant” presidents. Let’s expand our gaze to include Guatemala and El Salvador and move up to today. What is the situation in these three countries? Read the news, folks. Gangs, murders, drugs, two civil wars in the last half century, corruption at the highest levels, people fleeing, compounded by natural disasters. I know a fair bit about the Soviet Union and its former satellites in eastern Europe—not exactly paradise either. Cuba’s revolution in 1959 turned them onto a Soviet path without the tremendous number of murders perhaps. I have not been to Cuba. I have only one Cuban friend. But when I look at Cuba today and compare it to those three unfortunate countries to the west of the island, I perceive a tremendous difference. Cubans can get educated, they have a good health care system in which citizens live slightly longer than in the USA, the number of Cuban doctors is amazing—they have worked in many poorer parts of the world. Cuban sport achievements are legendary and their record in art, music, and other cultural fields is good. Despite their treatment of dissenters and homosexuals, despite a gulag of some size, I’d have to say that it would be far better to be born a Cuban than anyone outside the richest classes of the three Central American countries. Cuba used to be the whorehouse and casino of the Americas. For a long time it hasn’t been. How did this all come about?
Well, nobody is going to explain that in one review! And not even in one book. José Yglesias, an American, went to Cuba for a few months back in 1967 on an assignment from Pantheon Books as part of their excellent series about villages or towns around the world in those years. He wound up in Mayarí, a town of 8,000 people in eastern Cuba. He wrote an excellent account of what he saw, whom he met, and what they said. He visited schools, clinics, bars, a giant sugar mill, party offices, and a court, and talked to everybody in his fluent Spanish. He is able to convey the flavor of Cuban conversation quite well and paint portraits of everyone from mayors to waitresses and malcontent teenagers. He wasn’t prevented from talking to anyone. Perhaps he had a penchant for superfluous detail in his wish to portray Cuba as accurately and fairly as possible. He didn’t swallow any propaganda, he didn’t try to whitewash the problems or faults of the Revolution. He told the people there that he wanted to write the truth as he saw it and I believe he definitely did. Cuba was no “socialist paradise”. It was poor and they were struggling, but at that time, idealism and patriotism were running high. People were looking forward to a better life and I believe that—compared to Honduras or El Salvador—they got it. Things were already looking up. I am not a believer in Communism; it seems to me that the Soviet system was more murderous, totalitarian and tacky than “socialist”. But I would advise you, before you jump down my throat for being naïve, to read this very clear and honest picture of a society in flux.
October 13, 2022
Brilliant micr0-history of a small Cuban town undergoing big changes under Castro's revolution, from food to gender roles. Kudos to Jose Yglesias, the scion of an old Cuban-American family, for returning to his patria and writing this mind-blower.
December 10, 2011
Yglesias, a Cuban American journalist who had grown up in Yuba City (a part of Greater Tampa, Florida), is given in February 1967, an opportunity, with the approval of Cuba's Ministry of Foreign Affairs, to travel through Cuba to see how the Revolution was impacting upon the ordinary campesino.
The impetus for this book began as an assignment for Yglesias from Pantheon Books "to write a book for their 'village' series, auspiciously begun by Jan Myrdal's 'Report from a Chinese Village' and followed up successfully by Stud Terkel's 'Division Street: America'."
Yglesias begins his odyssey near the northeastern coast of Cuba, living among and ingratiating himself with the people that he met. The stories and conversations in this book give the feeling that the author has, in effect, made himself Cuban, and yet with the foreigner's perspective, is able to give the reader a snapshot of a nation struggling to remake itself and forge a more egalitarian society. I finished this book with a sense of wanting to know Cuba myself.
The impetus for this book began as an assignment for Yglesias from Pantheon Books "to write a book for their 'village' series, auspiciously begun by Jan Myrdal's 'Report from a Chinese Village' and followed up successfully by Stud Terkel's 'Division Street: America'."
Yglesias begins his odyssey near the northeastern coast of Cuba, living among and ingratiating himself with the people that he met. The stories and conversations in this book give the feeling that the author has, in effect, made himself Cuban, and yet with the foreigner's perspective, is able to give the reader a snapshot of a nation struggling to remake itself and forge a more egalitarian society. I finished this book with a sense of wanting to know Cuba myself.
January 16, 2023
Gonna get sorta corny about cuba sorry. Insanely heartwarming to read an account of a society that, while obviously deeply flawed, has machinery in place to address those flaws out of a genuine belief in a better future. For every issue Yglesias encounters, he encounters 3 people and a government program that is successfully dealing with the issue. Incredibly powerful that this society existed then and continues to exist today. Also Yglesias definitely had a lot of sex with his cleaning lady and is ashamed to write about it directly, but its there if you look for it.
May 22, 2025
Super interesting book that focuses on the people living in a small town in post-revolution Cuba. The accounts of daily life in this time period highlight both the achievements and, more importantly, errors to be learned from, of the government that shaped the trajectory of Cuba’s future as a socialist state.
Includes some really grounded criticism of Castro’s regime, particularly relating to the UMAP (a kind of ‘political re-education’ programme) which most notably detained individuals to camps for being gay, amongst other traits that were deemed to be ‘counter-revolutionary’.
Includes some really grounded criticism of Castro’s regime, particularly relating to the UMAP (a kind of ‘political re-education’ programme) which most notably detained individuals to camps for being gay, amongst other traits that were deemed to be ‘counter-revolutionary’.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews