Diary of a Survivor: 19 Years in Castro's Prisons Book

Diary of a Survivor is the story of Ana Rodriguez, a young medical student arrested by Cuba's State Security in early 1961 for her role in the anti-Castro underground. As a teenager, she had been active in the fight against the Batista dictatorship and at first welcomed Castro's triumph. But as the repressive nature of Castro's regime became ever clearer, Ana joined the fledgling struggle against Castro as well. Betrayed to the authorities by an informant, she was tried, convicted, and sentenced to thirty years in prison. Diary of a Survivor is a remarkably gripping tale in the tradition of Prisoner Without a Name, Cell Without a Number and Papillon, but with a single difference: while those books were about men, Ana Rodriguez tells the story of an utterly remarkable group of women jailed as political prisoners. Beaten, starved, threatened and bullied, locked in blackout cells for months at a time, denied water and medical treatment for long stretches, these women resisted with astonishing courage, guile, occasional violence, and an unshakable will, breaking their captors rather than being broken themselves while completely defeating the repressive apparatus of a totalitarian state.

"A personal account of life in prison by an early opponent of the Castro regime. Written as a testimonial and memoir, it documents the sordid abuses visited upon female prisoners in Castro's jails. One of the very few accounts of its kind, it is part of a genre that probes resistance to dictatorship. Offers details of how Castro's propaganda machine attempts to turn opponents of communism into outcasts"--Handbook of Latin American Studies, v. 57.