Host Kathleen Stephenson speaks with photojournalist and author Deena Stryker about her book, CUBA, A DIARY OF THE REVOLUTION: Inside the Cuban Revolution with Fidel, Raul, Che, and Celia Sanchez
It has been nearly five decades since Deena Stryker, then Boyer, journeyed to Cuba. Deena, a photojournalist went to revolutionary Cuba to both write and photograph the struggles, the trials and disagreements, the victories, and losses of the Cuban people. There she experienced the revolution first hand and enjoyed numerous conversations and powerful moments with its revolutionary leaders—Castro, Che, Celia, and a host of Revolutionaries.
Philadelphian Deena Stryker studied in Paris, became a French citizen by marriage, debuted at Agence France Presse in Rome, then, as Deena Boyer, followed Fellini’s creative process for The Two Hundred Days of ’81/2’. The proceeds enabled her to interview Fidel Castro for a major French weekly, meeting with him again a week after the Kennedy assassination, and several times in 1964 for this book, as the other members of the government (including Che Guevara, Raul Castro and Celia Sanchez), told her in their own words why they had made the revolution.
Returning to Paris in 1981, in Une autre Europe, un autre Monde, she elaborated a plan for the reunification of Europe, which also foresaw the breakup of the Soviet Union, appearing on the day the Berlin Wall fell. She returned to Philadelphia in 2000 and is a senior editor at Opednews.com.
- KBOO