CUBA

A fascinating view of Fidel and Raul Castro in the early 1960s; of Celia Sanchez, a woman who was critical to the success of the revolution but is little-known in the U.S.; and of Che Guevara, who clearly demonstrates his well-known impatience with women as he deals with Stryker, a young American-French journalist on assignment in Cuba for Paris Match. Stryker interacts with these remarkable leaders in their everyday lives, observing them as they try to create a new human-focused society while simultaneously dealing with the nearby world power and its attempts to eradicate both the revolution and its leaders.

—Mick Winter, author of Cuba for the Misinformed


Hundreds of books have been written about Cuba since the Revolution, but few authors have been granted the kind of exclusive access to its leaders as had Deena Stryker, a young French-American citizen, unafraid to venture, who benefitted from French citizenship at a time when the island was off-limits to Americans. Her observations are insightful, revelatory, and despite the hundreds of other books on Cuba, she offers a unique, personal perspective.

—Francis Goldin of Goldin Literary Agency



Stryker provides a critical and engaging look into the early years of the Cuban Revolution -- the players, the motivations, the mistakes, and the victories -- in the face of a super power armed to the teeth and desperately seeking to smash the Cuban experiment in independence. It is a must read for anyone interested in geopolitics, the Cold War or the ironies of history.

—Natylie Baldwin, author Ukraine: ZBIG's Grand Chessboard and How the West was Checkmated




CUBA, A DIARY OF THE REVOLUTION

Inside the Cuban Revolution with Fidel, Raul, Che, and Celia Sanchez


It has been nearly five decades since Deena Stryker, then Boyer, journeyed to Cuba. Deena, a photojournalist went to revolutionary Cuba to both write and photograph the struggles, the trials and disagreements, the victories, and losses of the Cuban people. There she experienced the revolution first hand and enjoyed numerous conversations and powerful moments with its revolutionary leaders—Castro, Che, Celia, and a host of Revolutionaries. Deena’s observations, her conversations are poignant, insightful, and tremendously informative, as she sheds light on numerous personal moments— thoughts, motivations, fears, and dreams.


Cuba, A Diary of the Revolution is the documented account of that journey during the early years of Cuba’s revolution in the early 1960’s and also a candid look at the Cuba of today as it comes to detente with the US.


THE AUTHOR

Philadelphian Deena Stryker studied in Paris, became a French citizen by marriage, debuted at Agence France Presse in Rome, then, as Deena Boyer, followed Fellini’s creative process for The Two Hundred Days of ’81/2’. The proceeds enabled her to interview Fidel Castro for a major French weekly, meeting with him again a week after the Kennedy assassination, and several times in 1964 for this book, as the other members of the government (including Che Guevara, Raul Castro and Celia Sanchez), told her in their own words why they had made the revolution.


Returning to Paris in 1981, in Une autre Europe, un autre Monde, she elaborated a plan for the reunification of Europe, which also foresaw the breakup of the Soviet Union, appearing on the day the Berlin Wall fell. She returned to Philadelphia in 2000 and is a senior editor at Opednews.com.