Penguin to publish Fidel Castro memoir next year

Penguin will publish the memoir of Fidel Castro on March 29, 2007. The publisher reports that the book will be released in the U.K. but not the U.S. According to the Book Standard ("BS"):

Journalist Ignacio Ramonet conducted a series of interviews for the book with Castro, who worked with him on the text which is told in Castro's words. Editor Will Goodlad at Allen Lane said: "Ramonet managed to do what everyone has tried to do before: get Fidel to sit down and talk through his whole life story."

make my living from freedom of the press, but Penguin's decision to publish this memoir is horrible. Castro is a brutal dictator who once pointed nuclear weapons at the U.S., starves his people while hoarding a fortune, and oversees one of the most oppressive regimes on the planet. As Peter Schweizer points out in Reagan's War, Castro also played a very active role in promoting armed communist revolutionaries throughout Latin America. Why give this hate-mongering warlord a platform to spout his propaganda?

There is no word on whether or not the tyrant was given an advance. But given the hefty retail price of 25 pounds, I'd say there's a significant chance he was. Also, the "BS" didn't mention whether Penguin was not releasing in the U.S. due to the embargo on goods from Cuba, but that would be my guess. (I've looked for a press release from Penguin but haven't yet found one.)

If anything about giving a platform to a communist butcher can be called amusing, it's the title -- My Life. Expect this whitewashing of the truth to shame even Bill Clinton's memoir of the same name.