To Change the World: My Years in Cuba (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9780813544328)

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 Worldeither an apology nor gratuitous attackdds immensely to the existing literature on revolutionary Cuba.

Author: Margaret Randall
ISBN-10: 0813544327
ISBN-13: 9780813544328
Publisher: Rutgers University Press
Language: English
Published: 01/06/2009
Pages: 247
Format: Paperback
Weight: 0.90lbs
Size: 9.00h x 6.00w x 0.90d

Review Citation(s):
Library Journal 01/15/2009 pg. 100
Multicultural Review 07/01/2009 pg. 62