Haydee Santamaria, and: Marianas in Combat: Tete Puebla and the Mariana Grajales Women's Platoon in Cuba's Revolutionary War, 1956-58 (review)

Before Cuba's national pantheon of revolutionary heroes and heroines became powerful government officials and international icons, they were a diverse group of exceptionally motivated young people determined to make a change. The romance of the early revolutionary years is undeniable and continues to captivate scholars and students alike. While the exhaustive documentation of the triumphs and tribulations of Cuba's male heroes is a perennial favorite among Hollywood movie moguls and blockbuster publishing houses, considerably less attention has been given to the Cuban women who made the fateful decision to take up arms. Two new biographies of highly accomplished Cuban women who remain relatively unknown internationally take us one step further in the process of building up a history of women's revolutionary experiences. Both Haydée Santamaría and Teté Puebla offer unique insights into the Cuban revolution and postrevolutionary society from their perspective as women and as key contributors to the process that radically altered the trajectory of their nation's history.

In her concise edited volume, Haydée Santamaría, Betsy Maclean weaves together a tapestry of memory texts—interviews, poetry, speeches, and personal correspondence—that shed light on one of Cuba's most beloved and enigmatic revolutionary heroines. Following a brief introduction in which Maclean traces the general trajectory of Haydée Santamaría's life from her birth in 1922 to her tragic suicide in 1980, the reader enters a two-part discussion of her specific contributions to the revolutionary cause. Bearing the evocative titles "Fire" and "Light," the book's two sections consist of interviews with Santamaría and testimony from those who knew her best. With her signature humility, Santamaría recounts the multiple roles she played in the revolution from printing and distributing the revolutionary movement's first ideological platform, History Will Absolve Me, to establishing the preeminent Latin American cultural institution, the Casa de las Américas. Though she openly embraced her official state responsibilities as a member of the National Directorate of the United Party of the Socialist Revolution, Santamaría was perhaps most proud of her role as an indefatigable promoter of Cuban writers, artists, and musicians like famed Nueva Trova singer, Silvio Rodríguez. To her compañeros and admirers, "Yeyé" was a woman of exceptional warmth and revolutionary conviction who lived at the crossroads of poetry and pragmatism, hope and sorrow, life and death. Santamaría's tragic suicide—precipitated by the violent murder of her brother in 1953 and later amplified by a devastating car accident that left her in chronic pain during her final years—has been particularly difficult for many Cubans to assimilate into her heroic life story. Maclean and her collaborators address the lingering sorrow surrounding Santamaría's untimely death with great sensitivity and respect. Despite a regrettable lack of visual materials—Maclean provides only a brief chronology of key events discussed in the text—students will connect to this compelling story of a woman who stands as a perpetual reminder of the youthful idealism and enduring dedication of Cuba's revolutionary vanguard.

Mary-Alice Waters' book, Marianas in Combat, differs from Maclean's book in several ways. Not only is her central protagonist, Teté Puebla, still living, she is also the highest-ranking woman in Cuba's Revolutionary Armed Forces and a Deputy of the National Assembly of People's Power. For her part, Waters is an active socialist and feminist whose strong support for the Cuban revolution is evident throughout the text. The principle sources for Waters' book are two interviews conducted with Puebla in November 2000 and March 2002. During these interviews, Waters poses questions that focus more consciously on women's roles in the Cuban revolution than Maclean does in her...