The Soul of a Poet: Raúl Rivero

Raúl Rivero moved into dissident opposition after what he deemed the betrayal of the Cuban Revolution. In 1991 he formally broke with the regime and founded an independent Cuban news agency. He wrote reports of what was actually happening and sent them abroad for publication. He taped some of these reports and distributed the tapes in Cuba—a tape-cassette samizdat, to use the old Soviet word for underground literature. His recordings were biting and ironic. He wrote poems. And, of course, he was detained by the police many times.