José Martí Knew the Monster
Long before Fidel Castro, José Martí warned that Cuban independence would mean little if US domination replaced Spanish rule.
(Joe Raedle / Getty Images)
Review of José Martí Reader: Writings on the Americas, ed. Deborah Shnookal and Mirta Muñiz (Seven Stories Press, 2025)
As Cuba’s best-known historical figure until the rise of Fidel Castro, and certainly the most widely respected, Martí’s status as Cuba’s héroe nacional was already well established before 1959.
He wrote prolifically in several fields, his complete works filling twenty-six volumes. One of the Spanish-speaking world’s leading modernista poets, he was also an eloquent journalist and chronicler, a prodigious letter writer, and even a diplomat for three Latin American countries.
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