Sartre in Cuba–Cuba in Sartre

William Rowlandson is Senior Lecturer in Hispanic Studies at the University of Kent, UK. Previous publications include Imaginal Landscapes (2015), Borges, Swedenborg and Mysticism (2013), critical edition of Biografía de un cimarrón (2010), Reading Lezama’s ‘Paradiso’ (2007).

• ‘You have no right to ignore the Cuban Revolution.’.- Hurricane over Sugar.- ‘We are living in the fashionable district.’.- ‘mon pauvre ami, in Latin America they have revolutions every year: it’s their way of voting.’.- ‘No sugar, no island.’.- ‘Castro is not an easy man to wrap up.’.- ‘Revolution is strong medicine.’.- ‘The contrecoup of the Agrarian Reform was the revolt of Matos and his garrison.’.- ‘Guevara was the most cultivated and, after Castro, one of the most lucid minds of the revolution.’.-  ‘Literature is a fight, a position.’.- Palabras a los intelectuales.- ‘Sartre preaches revolution’.- ‘You don’t arrest and jail those who disagree with you.’.- ‘Sartre’s self-imposed role was not simply to announce his stand but to reveal Cuba.’.- ‘Sartre very soon condemned the worst aspects of Castrism. The Cuban fiesta was over, his eyes were rapidly opened.’.- ‘Man is capable of changing the conditions of his life. But he cannot change whatever he wishes and however he wishes; indeed, only by changing himself can he change objective needs.’