A very short extract from Keith Ellis\u2019 Foreword to the book Cuba\u2013U.S. Relations.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat does a Canadian progressive intellectual do when a revolution<\/p>\n
made by the people of Cuba has won, because of its spirit and its<\/p>\n
achievements, his admiration and his loyalty? What does he do when<\/p>\n
this revolution, which, he shows, is the authentic culmination of a process<\/p>\n
that has involved all the salient stages of Cuba\u2019s history, of its struggles, now<\/p>\n
finds itself in a time of unprecedented complexity and new difficulties, fed in<\/p>\n
part by the very successes of the Revolution? Arnold August brings to the task<\/p>\n
his finest gift, his superbly developed talent as a journalist, understanding<\/p>\n
this to mean the habit of assessing different aspects and representations of<\/p>\n
reality, so that he offers an ultimate fairness to the reasonable and humane<\/p>\n
reader. August constantly exhibits a related attribute: his remarkable power<\/p>\n
of analysis. The two together make the experience of reading him an enlightening<\/p>\n
one. His research work for this book, as for others on related topics,<\/p>\n
led him to live in Cuba for important periods of time, to live among Cubans<\/p>\n
and notice 1) how Fidel\u2019s extraordinary power of analysis has been reflected<\/p>\n
in the Cuban population and 2) the impact its diffusion throughout the<\/p>\n
society has had on producing the calm, pleasant affability that underpins<\/p>\n
the stability of Cuba during times that could have been tempestuous. The<\/p>\n
people know how to think, and August has the superior skills, derived from<\/p>\n
his affinity for truth-telling, to produce a reliable picture of the complexities<\/p>\n
of their reaction to attempts to beguile them.\u201d<\/p>\n
Keith Ellis<\/strong> (Jamaica 1935) is Professor Emeritus, Department of Spanish and Portuguese,<\/p>\n University of Toronto, and Professor of Merit, the University of Havana. He taught Latin<\/p>\n American poetry until his retirement, publishing many books and articles in this area.<\/p>\n His own poetry has appeared in several journals in the Caribbean, North America and<\/p>\n China. Among his awards are the Dulce Mar\u00eda Loynaz International Prize (Cuba), the<\/p>\n Andr\u00e9s Bello Medal (Venezuela), Doctor honoris causa from the University of Havana<\/p>\n and the Order of Distinction (cd) from the government of Jamaica. He is a Fellow of the<\/p>\n Royal Society of Canada.\u201d<\/p>\n