Carlos Alberto Montaner, a renowned Cuban-born writer and columnist, passed away on June 29 at the age of 80. Montaner, who had a degenerative brain disorder called progressive supranuclear palsy, was known for his fierce opposition to Fidel Castro’s communist regime in Cuba.
Throughout his career spanning over six decades, Montaner produced more than 25 novels and nonfiction commentaries, nearly all of which criticized Cuba’s regime and predicted its downfall. However, despite the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 and Castro’s death in 2016, Montaner grew increasingly frustrated as sweeping changes failed to materialize in Cuba.
Montaner gained a wider audience through his roles as a political analyst for CNN’s Spanish-language channel and as a columnist for the Miami Herald and El Nuevo Herald. While his hectoring tone resonated with hard-line Cuban exiles, it also drew criticism from others as being stuck in Cold War-era simplicity.
Montaner depicted leftist leaders and their ideologies in Latin America as hindrances to progress, while praising American-style capitalism and Western political systems. However, he overlooked the abuses committed by many U.S.-backed governments in the region.
In an interview with the George W. Bush Presidential Center in 2011, Montaner expressed solidarity with victims of totalitarianism worldwide, including those in Burma, North Korea, Iran, and Cuba.
Following the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, Montaner played a role in forging a political front from Madrid, hoping for ripple effects in Cuba due to the unraveling of the Eastern Bloc and the Soviet Union. While Miami-based opposition factions advocated for tighter U.S.-led sanctions, Montaner favored dialogue through his group, the Cuban Democratic Platform.
In 1990, a former Spanish prime minister, Adolfo Suárez, met with Castro on Montaner’s behalf, but no concessions were made. Montaner expressed naivety in believing that Castro would admit the failure of his regime.
As a teenager in Havana, Montaner initially celebrated Castro’s overthrow of President Fulgencio Batista’s U.S.-backed government, hoping for economic freedom. However, Castro’s turn to Marxism and violent purges led Montaner to become an anti-Castro rebel. He was captured, sentenced to 20 years in prison in 1960, and managed to escape to Miami.
Montaner’s works often explored the theme of a lost homeland and the heart-wrenching choices individuals faced. His fiction depicted characters who would rather die than succumb to oppressive systems.
In 1996, Montaner faced backlash for comments deemed sexist and offensive by Puerto Rican groups during a Univision news show. He later apologized for his remarks but was dropped as a columnist by El Diario La Prensa.
His 1996 book, “Manual del Perfecto Idiota Latinoamericano,” received criticism from leftist circles for its neoconservative perspective. In the book, Montaner, Plinio Apuleyo Mendoza, and Álvaro Vargas Llosa argued that Latin American leaders wrongly blamed the United States and others for underdevelopment and economic problems.
Carlos Alberto Montaner Suris was born on April 3, 1943, in Havana. After fleeing Cuba, he reunited with his family in Miami and studied at the University of Miami. He later moved to Madrid, where he founded a publishing house and continued to write for U.S. newspapers.
Montaner’s wife Linda, two children, and two granddaughters survive him. Despite his longing to return to Cuba, Montaner believed he would pass away without setting foot on Cuban soil again.
The death of Carlos Alberto Montaner is a loss for the literary and political world, as his fierce opposition to the Cuban regime and his thought-provoking works left an indelible mark on Latin America and beyond.
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