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To Change the World
My Years in Cuba
Language:
English
Published/Copyright:
2009
About this book
In To Change the World, the legendary writer and poet Margaret Randall chronicles her decade in Cuba from 1969 to 1980. Both a highly personal memoir and an examination of the revolution's great achievements and painful mistakes, the book paints a portrait of the island during a difficult, dramatic, and exciting time.
Randall gives readers an inside look at her children's education, the process through which new law was enacted, the ins and outs of healthcare, employment, internationalism, culture, and ordinary people's lives. She explores issues of censorship and repression, describing how Cuban writers and artists faced them. She recounts one of the country's last beauty pageants, shows us a night of People's Court, and takes us with her when she shops for her family's food rations. Key figures of the revolution appear throughout, and Randall reveals aspects of their lives never before seen.
More than fifty black and white photographs, most by the author, add depth and richness to this astute and illuminating memoir. Written with a poet's ear, depicted with a photographer's eye, and filled with a feminist vision, To Change the Worldùneither an apology nor gratuitous attackùadds immensely to the existing literature on revolutionary Cuba.
Author / Editor information
Margaret Randall is an award-winning feminist poet, photographer, and social activist with more than eighty published books to her credit, such as Stones Witness and When I Look into the Mirror and See You (Rutgers University Press). She and her family lived in Cuba from 1969 to 1980. Randall's previous works on Cuba include Cuban Women Now, Cuban Women Twenty Years Later, and Breaking the Silences: 20th Century Poetry by Cuban Women.
Reviews
Randall's prose is beautiful and she walks the reader through the beginning of the Cuban Revolution in a way no other sort of text or author could do.
— A Contra CorrienteRandall's fondness and indeed admiration for Cuba are unmistakable, especially when she's talking about the nation's systems of health care and education, a premise that will both provoke and anger some readers. Yet Randall's personal reflection on a decade in Cuba is a worthy addition to the ever growing body of literature on Cuba--past and present.
— Boyd Childress, Library JournalIt is Randall's ability to make the reader a part of her daily encounters that makes her memoir so engaging. Her writing humanizes a revolution all too often stereotyped by the U.S. mainstream press. The contradictions of the Cuban revolution are illustrated movingly by incidents in a mother's daily life. To Change the World not only covers the years Randall spent in Cuba and the months leading up to them, it lays the groundwork for a considered examination of the Cuban situation today, ending the last chapter with an expansive global political and societal analysis. Randall's personal story would have been a page turner in itself, but her choice to bear witness to the larger struggle of the Cuban people at a time in history when many places in the world were engaged in the struggle for social justice makes for a riveting account that will undoubtedly stand the test of time.
— National Catholic ReporterA moving and intimate contemplation of a key historical moment that has been relegated to the margins of political discussion in the wake of the cold war.
— Mark Behr, author of The Smell of Apples"Many ask if those of us who lived the Cuban revolution in flesh and spirit would wage that battle again. Margaret Randall's loving and realistic book reveals why we would. It gives us the highlights and shadows of a process that marked the 20th century like no other."THERE SHOULD BE ACUTE ACCENTs OVER THE i IN RODRIGUEZ AND OVER THE o IN CALDERON.
— Mirta Rodriguez Calderon, Cuban revolutionary, journalist, and feministTo Change the World is a rare double opportunity: an intimate look at the Cuban Revolution from 1969 to 1980, and a fascinating portrait of the development of a historian, poet, and political thinker.
— Monthly ReviewTo Change the World is a gripping, affective narrative by one of the most extraordinary feminists of our times--and a cautionary look at how and why the reach of revolution can fall far short of its grasp.
— Women's Review of BooksTo know Cuba, neither analyses nor statistics nor official declarations nor diatribes by its adversaries are enough. One needs eyes infused with heart, passionate eyes, with which to look at the Cuban people in their daily life. In this book Margaret Randall looks at Cuba through such eyes.
— Maria Lopez Vigil, author of Cuba: Neither Heaven Nor HellTopics
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Frontmatter
i -
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Contents
vii -
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Acknowledgments
xi -
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Prologue: Some Reflections before I Begin
1 -
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1. Scarsdale to Havana
7 -
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2. Transition
25 -
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3. Settling In
41 -
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4. Food, Food, Food
61 -
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5. Ten Million Tons of Sugar and Eleven Fishermen
71 -
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8. A Poetry Contest and a Beauty Pageant
83 -
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7. Women and Difference
95 -
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8. Information and Consciousness
115 -
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9. Changing Hearts, Minds, and Law
125 -
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10. “Poetry, Like Bread, Is for Everyone”
145 -
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11. El Quinquenio Gris
171 -
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12. The Sandinistas
191 -
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13. A Question of Power
217 -
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14. Epilogue
237 -
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Notes
257 -
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Index
263
Publishing information
Pages and Images/Illustrations in book
eBook published on:
November 18, 2019
eBook ISBN:
9780813546452
Pages and Images/Illustrations in book
eBook ISBN:
9780813546452
Keywords for this book
Margaret Randall; memoir; Cuba; Cuban Revolution; personal experiences; education system; lawmaking process; healthcare system; employment; internationalism; culture; censorship; repression; Cuban writers; artists; beauty pageants; People's Court; food rations; revolutionary figures; black and white photographs; feminist perspective; social change; political activism; cultural exploration; historical context; personal anecdotes; astute observations; revolutionary Cuba; literary contribution.
Audience(s) for this book
For a non-specialist adult audience
