Author(s): Luis Garcia

Biography & Memoir

What was it really like to grow up in Castro's people's paradise? With an evocative wide-eyed innocence, Luis M. Garcia takes us back to his childhood in this evocative memoir of growing up in 1960s Cuba.

Cuba, a land of cigars, hot nights, sultry music and romantic revolutionary heroes. But what was it really like to live in Fidel Castro's tropical paradise? With an evocative wide-eyed innocence, Luis M. Garcia takes us back to his Cuban childhood and his parents' dreams of escape.
Child of the Revolution is a story about growing up in an extraordinary place at an extraordinary time, as the superpowers prepared to go to war over nuclear missiles installed on the tiny Caribbean island. It's a story set in a world of uncertainty and revolutionary upheaval, where a 10-year-old swears allegiance to Lenin, Marx and the legendary Che Guevara under swaying palm trees, with no idea of what it all means, except this is the only way to become a better revolutionary' and get out of school early. It is also the story of brothers and sisters torn apart by politics and how a Cuban teenager and his family end up by sheer accident - on the other side of the world.

Warm, generous and gently amusing, Child of the Revolution stirs the heart and brings music to the soul.

First published May 2006.