Santamaría, Haydée (1927–1980)

Haydée Santamaría (b. 1927; d. 26 July 1980), Cuban revolutionary and cultural director. Haydée Santamaría was one of two women who participated in the 1953 attack on Cuba's Moncada army barracks in Santiago. Arrested and imprisoned, she was released on 20 February 1954. She met with Fidel Castro in Mexico, and then returned to Cuba to organize resistance to the Batista government in Santiago. Santamaría was a founding member of the national directorate of the Twenty-Sixth of July Movement. She was a member of the Central Committee of the Cuban Communist Party, and the director of the Casa de las Américas, an institution for the study of popular culture. Santamaría was married to Minister of Education Armando Hart. She died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound.

See alsoCastro Ruz, Fidel; Cuba, Political Parties: Communist Party; Cuba, Twenty-Sixth of July Movement.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Carlos Franqui, Diary of the Cuban Revolution, translated by Georgette Felix, et al. (1980); "Haydée Santamaría, Director of Casa de las Américas Dies," in Cuba Update 1, no. 3 (1980): 16.

Tad Szulc, Fidel: A Critical Portrait (1986).

Ernesto Guevara, Che Guevara and the Cuban Revolution: Writings and Speeches of Ernesto Che Guevara, edited by David Deutschmann (1987).

Additional Bibliography

Fernández Retamar, Roberto. Cuba defendida. Buenos Aires: Nuestra América, 2004.

Hart Santamaría, Celia. Haydée: Del Moncada a casa. Buenos Aires: Nuestra America, 2005.

Maclean, Betsy. Haydée Santamaría. Melbourne and New York: Ocean Press, 2003.

                           Daniel P. Dwyer O.F.M.