Ten
years ago, Juanita Castro set down to write her memoirs, and thanks to
the fortunate coincidence that I was both her friend and a journalist,
we began working on them together. When we finished in 1999, Juanita
decided not to publish them, and for the past ten years we kept this
bookthe first one I had written a secret. Surprisingly, Juanita chose
this year, 2009, to bear her soul in an extraordinary journey through
the triumphs and tragedies of her life and, consequently, the events
that have shaped the lives of millions of people during the past fifty
years. This is the first-hand testimony of a person who, from the
moment of her birth, was connected by the deepest bond to two of the
most notable political figures of contemporary Latin American history:
Fidel and Raul Castro, her brothers. It is, therefore, the most
intimate and accurate analysis any person can do of their own kin:
mother, father, grandparents, and brothers, the famous and those that
chose to stay out of the