This is your house, Fidel by Carlos D. Lechuga

Year of publication: 2024

Valuation: Highly recommended

Cuba is one of the protagonists of the political history of the 20th century. Already 1898 seemed to portend that the island would find itself at the center of the whirlwind of the 20th century. And, although it remained out of focus in the first half of the century, the 1959 revolution had an undeniable influence on many of the “left” / anti-colonial political movements in Latin America, Africa or Asia.

Do not fear. Today we will not talk about History (with capital letters) but about stories (with lowercase letters) and, in any case, stories within History.

Because “This is your house, Fidel” is a book of memories that is supported by three legs (the personal, the family and the collective) that are not watertight compartments but communicating vessels.

Carlos Lechuga Hevia, the author’s grandfather, was, among other positions, ambassador of the revolutionary government to the United Nations and, therefore, the author’s family was part of the elite (or jetset) of the island. Come on, he was not from the royal family but he was very close.

This social position, together with the cult of the personality of the leader, makes the young Carlos Díaz Lechuga feel a kind of fascination with the figure of Fidel. The problem is that one grows older, one sees things (contradictions, nonsense, etc.) and that initial image turns towards disenchantment, fear and disgust as the state apparatus focuses on one, whether for a comment, a movie, “inappropriate” sexual behavior, etc.

Given the choice, I am very interested in what the book has as an inquiry into slave morality, in the suppression of the disbelief that accompanies utopias that become dystopias (however tragicomic they may be) and what the book has as a chronicle, distant of simplifications more akin to the ideological than to the real, of a country of masks and lies, of whispers and silences.

But it is better for the author himself to explain all this to us. You can see it in this video from our YouTube channel: