Self-Portrait of the Other: A Memoir

by Heberto Padilla, Alexander Coleman (Translator)

Overview

The autobiography of Cuba's finest poet, whose condemnation by the Castro regime became a cause celebre.

"Intellectuals alienated from the Castro government who have told their stories tend to sound spiteful and illiberal, like Cabrera Infante; Padilla takes pains to do better. His style is clear, sometimes witty, often bitter, persevering but not burdensome, and evincing an occasional affinity with both Orwell and Hemingway." - Publishers Weekly

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780374526559
Publisher:	Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Publication date:	12/01/1999
Pages:	256
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.40(h) x 0.80(d)

About the Author

Heberto Padilla (1932-2000) was a Cuban poet who served time in prison for criticizing the Castro regime. In addition to Legacies, his own selection of poems from throughout his career, Padilla also wrote the autobiographical novel Heroes Are Grazing In My Garden and the memoir Self-Portrait of the Other. He and his second wife, poet Belkis Cuza Male, divided their time between Princeton, New Jersey and Madrid, Spain.

Editorial Reviews

``Where the paths of poetry and politics cross, there is little room for reconciliation,'' observes the author. Allowed to leave Cuba in 1981 following a decade in disfavor with the Castro regime, this distinguished Cuban poet offers a memoir of his experiences between 1959 and 1981, first within, then estranged from, the Cuban revolution and its ethos. Intellectuals alienated from the Castro government who have told their stories tend to sound spiteful and illiberal, like Cabrera Infante; Padilla takes pains to do better. His style is clear, sometimes witty, often bitter, persevering but not burdensome, and evincing an occasional affinity with both Orwell and Hemingway. The right will doubtless celebrate his description of the Cuban security apparatus and his negative assessment of Castro's intellectual and moral integrity, but the regime's sympathizers will find something constructive, if disturbing, in Padilla's meditations on Castro's failure to do more than assign artists and writers a sharply circumscribed PR mission. Padilla also is at home talking literary shop about writers such as Camus, Yevtushenko et al. (Jan.)

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

This is a memoir not only of one of Cuba's best-known contemporary poets and novelists ( Legacies: Selected Poems , LJ 1/1/82; Heroes Are Grazing in My Garden , LJ 9/15/84) but also of the major literary personalities of the 20th century, from Sartre to Garcia Marquez. The book spans Padilla's career, from his ardent early support of the revolution to his subsequent imprisonment and ostracism by the Castro regime. The Padilla affair of 1968, when the Castro government would not permit Padilla to accept the international Writers' Union poetry prize, became a cause celebre for American and European writers, through whose intervention Padilla now lives in the United States. Worthy reading for those interested in contemporary literature.-- Mary Margaret Benson, Linfield Coll. Lib., McMinnville, Ore.

Library Journal