The Woman beneath the Myth Available to Purchase

This chapter is a far-reaching but open-ended conclusion to the questions posed throughout the book. Who was Haydée Santamaría? What social forces shaped her? In what ways did she transgress the strictures of her class, gender and culture to take on such an important role in the process of her country’s social change? What were her relationships like? Why and how did art figure so prominently in her values? What kind of a partner and mother was she? The author draws on her personal experience with her subject, interviews with others, a variety of research sources, the meager available literature, and 62 photographs of Haydée and those important to her. She examines the heroine’s life choices and decisions, and the Revolution’s inability to honor her at the hour of her death. Gender considerations and the suicidal option are woven throughout this analysis.