University Press of Florida

Review
Reviewed Work(s): Haydée Santamaría, Cuban Revolutionary: She Led by Transgression
by Margaret Randall
Review by: J. Patrice McSherry
Source: Journal of Global South Studies , Vol. 33, No. 2, Forces of Change: Our Past,
Present, and Future Reconsidered (Fall 2016), pp. 112-115
Published by: University Press of Florida

Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.2307/48519434

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Journal of Global South Studies, Fall 2016

Randall, Margaret. Haydée Santamaría, Cuban

Revolutionary: She Led by Transgression. Durham, NC:
Duke University Press, 2015.

Margaret Randall’s book about one of the few

women who participated in all facets of the Cuban revolu-
tion, Haydée Santamaría, is a lyrical tribute, an impression-
istic history, and a personal reminiscence. Randall lived in
Cuba in the 1970s and worked with Santamaría in various
literary endeavors. The book was in part motivated by
Randall’s sense that Santamaría had not been remembered
or honored as a hero of the revolution as she should have
been, largely due to the fact that she committed suicide, and
perhaps also due to her gender. Suicide was not understood
or accepted in the revolution and Cuban authorities dis-
played ambivalence regarding the commemoration of her
role and her accomplishments, despite the fact that
Santamaría fought with Fidel Castro in the Sierra; was a
member of the leadership that included Castro, Che
Guevara, and others; was a skilled and effective political
organizer; and was the founder and director of the interna-
tionally-known Casa de las Américas in Havana. As direc-
tor, she interacted with world-renowned political figures,
painters, novelists, musicians, poets, and dramatists, and
under her leadership the institution became a cultural mag-
net and prestigious center for Latin American artists and
intellectuals.

Randall is sympathetic to the Cuban revolution and

presents its significant achievements. Perhaps because she
wanted to avoid direct criticism, especially in light of gener-
al anti-Cuban and anticommunist sentiments common in the

112

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 Book Reviews

United States, she sometimes treads lightly regarding weak-

nesses or errors made by the revolutionary government. She
mentions several cases of cultural conformism or intoler-
ance of artistic expression in the cultural field, citing as one
example the Padilla affair and its negative consequences.
Heberto Padilla was a writer who was imprisoned for work
considered critical of the government; his detention and sub-
sequent mea culpa caused a worldwide reaction (pp. 143-
48). But her references to the Nueva Trova movement are
quite ambiguous. Nueva Trova was part of the continent-
wide New Song movement that appeared in the 1960s in
Chile, Argentina, Uruguay, and elsewhere, introducing
vibrant and socially-conscious music that rejected the old
order and cried out for a new one of social justice. Based in
folk music traditions and instruments, the young musicians
created new musical forms and genres. They produced
innovative, original, and haunting music with modern adap-
tations and lyrics that spoke poetically of the popular strug-
gles and ideals of the day. Randall alludes several times to
the marginalization and even persecution of Nueva Trova
musicians such as Silvio Rodríguez, Pablo Milanés, and
Noël Nicola, yet never clearly describes the specifics (pp.
118, 131, 154). It is clear that Santamaría encouraged, pro-
tected, and mentored the Nueva Trova musicians. Yet, even
reading between the lines, one is left with unanswered ques-
tions. To understand more about this period in Cuban histo-
ry (late 1960s) one must consult books such as Robin
Moore’s Music and Revolution: Cultural Change in
Socialist Cuba. Moore explains that for a few years the more
orthodox elements of Cuba’s government regarded Nueva
Trova with suspicion because of its international influences
(including U.S. rock, folk, and jazz) and eclectic, rebellious

113

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Journal of Global South Studies, Fall 2016

style. Thanks to Santamaría and other strong voices within

Cuba, he notes, the so-called quinquenio gris (five gray
years) of cultural censure in Cuba passed, and by the mid-
1970s Nueva Trova became an accepted and celebrated sym-
bol of revolutionary Cuba.

Randall emphasizes that Santamaría was not afraid

to challenge injustice both inside and outside the revolution.
She was a lifelong militant and defender of the revolution
and Castro, and a leader of the Partido Comunista. At the
same time she strongly defied attempts to silence or control
artistic expression. She was a critic of “socialist realism”
and narrow cultural conformism, and demanded excellence,
not political correctness, in the multitude of literary, artistic,
and musical projects recognized or sponsored by Casa de las
Américas. She was fearless in confronting what she saw as
narrow-mindedness inside and outside of party meetings
and believed that “the arts are necessary for social change
and that culture is the highest form of politics” (p. 130). She
intervened personally to free artists who were detained,
including those accused of homosexuality. For these rea-
sons, Randall asserts that she “led by transgression” (p.
178).

At times the book’s assemblage of images, reflec-

tions, and anecdotes can wander a bit, but one comes away
with a sense of Santamaría as a principled and humane
leader, as a woman before her time, and as an extraordinary,
if flawed, human being. Because Randall is a poet her book
is more lyrical and personal than academic in its approach.
The end result is a book that sheds new light on one of
Cuba’s most vital, and least known, revolutionaries.

114

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 Book Reviews

J. Patrice McSherry
Long Island University and Instituto de Estudios Avanzados,
Santiago, Chile

Middle East
Johnson, Jennifer. The Battle for Algeria: Sovereignty,
Health Care, and Humanitarianism. Philadelphia:
University of Pennsylvania Press, 2016.

Jennifer Johnson’s The Battle for Algeria provides a

painstakingly researched and richly descriptive analysis of
the strategic importance of medicine, human rights, and
humanitarianism for Algerian nationalists’ evolving and
expanding political agencies, and the internationalization of
their struggle during the war for independence. In showing
how nationalist movements harnessed the humanitarian and
human rights logics engendered by international organiza-
tions, treaties and conventions in the post-World War II peri-
od, Johnson traces the complex ways such logics were used
to ascribe political as well as moral legitimacy to national-
ists’ fight for sovereignty. In so doing, Johnson then shows
how nationalists, and the Front de Libération Nationale
(FLN) in particular, were ultimately successful in establish-
ing themselves as a viable and legitimate alternative to
French colonial administration. More than this, Johnson
illuminates how nationalists’ tactical humanitarianism, and
the medical care and human rights attention provided to
combatants and impoverished Algerians by the health-serv-

115

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