Carlos Alberto Montaner
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Carlos Alberto Montaner Suris (3 April 1943 – 29 June 2023) was an exiled Cuban author and journalist known for his criticism of
Fidel Castro Fidel Alejandro Castro Ruz (13 August 1926 – 25 November 2016) was a Cuban politician and revolutionary who was the leader of Cuba from 1959 to 2008, serving as the prime minister of Cuba from 1959 to 1976 and President of Cuba, president ...
and the Cuban government. He was published widely in Latin American newspapers, and produced fiction and non-fiction books about Latin America. Montaner was a political analyst for
CNN en Español Cable News Network en Español (CNN en Español, stylized as CN͠N) is a Pan-American Spanish-language news channel, owned by CNN Worldwide, a news division for Warner Bros. Discovery. It was launched on pay television, on March 17, 1997. Hi ...
.


Background

Montaner was born in 1943 in
Havana Havana (; ) is the capital and largest city of Cuba. The heart of La Habana Province, Havana is the country's main port and commercial center.Cuba Cuba, officially the Republic of Cuba, is an island country, comprising the island of Cuba (largest island), Isla de la Juventud, and List of islands of Cuba, 4,195 islands, islets and cays surrounding the main island. It is located where the ...
. After the
Cuban Revolution The Cuban Revolution () was the military and political movement that overthrew the dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista, who had ruled Cuba from 1952 to 1959. The revolution began after the 1952 Cuban coup d'état, in which Batista overthrew ...
of 1959, Montaner, along with others identified then as counter-revolutionaries, was imprisoned by the Cuban government on charges of participating in terrorist attacks and of working with the
CIA The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA; ) is a civilian foreign intelligence service of the federal government of the United States tasked with advancing national security through collecting and analyzing intelligence from around the world and ...
. Soon after his arrest, he managed to escape from prison and fled Cuba permanently. In 1970 he relocated to Spain from the United States. In 2007 the regional government of Madrid awarded the Prize for Tolerance to Montaner, a distinction that is awarded to those who have fought for freedom and respect for human rights.Cuba, España y el futuro. El imperio fracasado de Castro tiene pocas salidas
El Mundo Lunes, 15 de enero de 1996. AÑO VIII NUMERO 2.253


Career

After earning a master's degree at the
University of Miami The University of Miami (UM, UMiami, Miami, U of M, and The U) is a private university, private research university in Coral Gables, Florida, United States. , the university enrolled 19,852 students in two colleges and ten schools across over ...
, Montaner taught American literature at the
Interamerican University of Puerto Rico The Inter American University of Puerto Rico (Spanish: ''Universidad Interamericana de Puerto Rico''; often abbreviated to ''UIPR'' or ''Inter'') is a private Christian university with its main campus in San Germán, Puerto Rico. It also has ...
from 1966 to 1970. During those years he published four books: ''Los combatientes'' (1968), ''Galdós humorista'' (1969), ''Póker de brujas'' (1970), and ''Instantáneas al borde del abismo'' (1970). The last two were also published in English. Montaner began his career in
journalism Journalism is the production and distribution of reports on the interaction of events, facts, ideas, and people that are the "news of the day" and that informs society to at least some degree of accuracy. The word, a noun, applies to the journ ...
in 1968, working with
Joaquín Maurín Joaquín Maurín Juliá ( Catalan: Joaquim Maurín, 12 January 1896 – 5 November 1973) was a Spanish communist politician and activist. The leader of the Workers and Peasants Bloc (BOC) and of the Workers' Party of Marxist Unification (POU ...
, a Spanish exile who had founded the American Literary Agency in New York City at the end of the 1940s with the objective of disseminating democratic ideas in the United States and Latin America. Maurín was a noted
Marxist Marxism is a political philosophy and method of socioeconomic analysis. It uses a dialectical and materialist interpretation of historical development, better known as historical materialism, to analyse class relations, social conflic ...
theorist whose thinking had evolved toward liberal democracy after the
Spanish Civil War The Spanish Civil War () was a military conflict fought from 1936 to 1939 between the Republican faction (Spanish Civil War), Republicans and the Nationalist faction (Spanish Civil War), Nationalists. Republicans were loyal to the Left-wing p ...
. Montaner began writing a weekly column which soon became available throughout the rest of Latin America. He also came to be in demand as a lecturer throughout the continent, speaking on the defense of liberty, economic development, and the role of culture in the evolution of societies.


1970s

By 1970, his success as a columnist and speaker had made it possible for him to move to
Madrid Madrid ( ; ) is the capital and List of largest cities in Spain, most populous municipality of Spain. It has almost 3.5 million inhabitants and a Madrid metropolitan area, metropolitan area population of approximately 7 million. It i ...
and dedicate his life to his columns and books. He established a publishing house, Editorial Playor, in 1972. His first novel, ''Perromundo'', was published in 1972 and was subsequently made into a movie. His book ''Informe secreto sobre la revolución cubana'' was published in 1975, and was followed a year later by ''200 años de gringos'', celebrating the bicentennial of the United States and contrasting the evolution of the United States with that of Latin America. This contrast between the levels of development in the Americas and the reasons for it would occupy much of his attention thereafter. As Spain moved rapidly toward democracy after the death of Franco, he joined the Liberal Club of Madrid.


1980s

In the 1980s, Montaner began a weekly television commentary that was aired by satellite throughout Latin America. He also produced three books: ''Fidel Castro y la revolución cubana'', subsequently published in English, Italian, and Russian; ''La agonía de América''; and ''1898: La trama''. In 1980 he received the ABC Prize for Journalism, awarded by the then Spanish premier
Adolfo Suárez Adolfo Suárez González, 1st Duke of Suárez (; 25 September 1932 – 23 March 2014) was a Spanish lawyer and politician. Suárez was Spain's first democratically elected Prime Minister of Spain, prime minister since the Second Spanish Republi ...
. By then, his columns were being published in a number of newspapers in the United States, and the ''
Miami Herald The ''Miami Herald'' is an American daily newspaper owned by McClatchy, The McClatchy Company and headquartered in Miami-Dade County, Florida. Founded in 1903, it is the fifth-largest newspaper in Florida, serving Miami-Dade, Broward County, Fl ...
'' invited him to join its editorial board. He also edited the opinion page of ''
El Nuevo Herald ''El Nuevo Herald'' is a newspaper published daily in Spanish in Southeast Florida, United States. Its headquarters is in Doral. ''El Nuevo Heralds sister paper is the ''Miami Herald'', also produced by the McClatchy Company. About ''el Nuevo ...
'' between 1987 and 1989.


1990s

In 1990, comments Montaner made on the television show ''Portada'' on the
Univision Univision () is an American Spanish-language terrestrial television, free-to-air television network owned by TelevisaUnivision. It is the United States' largest provider of Spanish-language content. The network's programming is aimed at the L ...
network were perceived as offensive to Puerto Ricans. The president of Univision, Joaquin Blaya, supported Montaner, who explained his comment in an article later published in the Wall Street Journal. The controversy resulted in ''
El Diario La Prensa ''El Diario Nueva York'' is the largest and the oldest Spanish-language daily newspaper in the United States. Published by ImpreMedia, the paper covers local, national and international news with an emphasis on Latin America, as well as human-i ...
'' dropping Montaner as a weekly columnist. In 1992, the Liberal International named Montaner a vice president, which brought him into contact with many of the world's leaders. During the first half of the 1990s, the magazines ''Ciencia Política'' of
Bogotá Bogotá (, also , , ), officially Bogotá, Distrito Capital, abbreviated Bogotá, D.C., and formerly known as Santa Fe de Bogotá (; ) during the Spanish Imperial period and between 1991 and 2000, is the capital city, capital and largest city ...
and ''Perfiles Liberales'' of
Mexico City Mexico City is the capital city, capital and List of cities in Mexico, largest city of Mexico, as well as the List of North American cities by population, most populous city in North America. It is one of the most important cultural and finan ...
invited him to join their editorial boards, and ''
Newsweek ''Newsweek'' is an American weekly news magazine based in New York City. Founded as a weekly print magazine in 1933, it was widely distributed during the 20th century and has had many notable editors-in-chief. It is currently co-owned by Dev P ...
'' and ''
The Wall Street Journal ''The Wall Street Journal'' (''WSJ''), also referred to simply as the ''Journal,'' is an American newspaper based in New York City. The newspaper provides extensive coverage of news, especially business and finance. It operates on a subscriptio ...
'' began to sporadically publish his columns. Montaner produced three books during this period: ''Cómo y por qué cayó el comuunismo''; ''Libertad, la clave de la prosperidad''; and ''Cuba hoy: la lenta muerte del castrismo''. He was also named a visiting professor in universities in Guatemala, Ecuador, and Perú. The best-selling ''Manual del Perfecto Idiota Latinoamericano'', in which he collaborated with Álvaro Vargas Llosa and Plinio Apuleyo Mendoza, was published in 1996 and in English in 2000 by Madison Books. Its sequel, ''Fabricantes de miseria'', was published in 1998. Montaner also authored ''No perdamos también el siglo XXI'' (1997) and, in 1999, ''Viaje al corazón de Cuba''. In 1999, in Madrid, Montaner received the Premio de Periodismo de la Fundación Independiente and the Medalla de la Cultura de Puerto Rico. In the same year he was the recipient of a Premio América award by the de Centro Interamericano Gerencia Política with the inscription, "His writings on freedom have served as a guide to the oppressed and to the emerging democracies."


2000s

In 2004 he was invited by ''The Miami Herald'' to be part of its editorial board. Since then his weekly columns were published in English. Books written by Montaner during this period include ''Las raíces torcidas de América Latina'' (2002), ''América Latina y la cultura occidental'' (2004), and ''La libertad y sus enemigos'' (2005), all dealing with the roots of Latin America poverty and underdevelopment. In 2006 Brickell Communicatios Group produced a series of 13 lessons on Cuban history for TV written and narrated by Montaner and published a collection of the scripts in the book ''Los Cubanos: historia de Cuba en una lección''. In 2007 two more books were published, ''Las columnas de la libertad'' and ''El regreso del idiota'', the latter written with Plinio Apuleyo Mendoza and Álvaro Vargas Llosa. In March and April 2010, Montaner and Cuban singer
Silvio Rodríguez Silvio Rodríguez Domínguez (born 29 November 1946) is a Cuban musician, and leader of the Nueva Trova movement. He is widely considered as Cuba's best folk singer and arguably one of Latin America's greatest singer-songwriters. Known for his ...
had a "compelling exchange of letters on Cuba". Montaner received an honorary doctoral degree from the Universidad Francisco Marroquín. His daughter Gina Montaner was married to journalist Jorge Ramos; they had one daughter, Paola (born 1987).Univision Viday y Familia: "Rumores de boda de Jorge Ramos y Chiquinquirá"
30 July 2012


Death

On 6 May 2023, Montaner announced that he was suffering from a neurodegenerative illness for which there was no cure. Montaner died from the illness on 29 June 2023, at the age of 80.


See also

*
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*
Anderson Cooper Anderson Hays Cooper (born June 3, 1967) is an American broadcast journalist and political commentator who anchors the CNN news broadcast show ''Anderson Cooper 360°''. In addition to his duties at CNN, Cooper serves as a correspondent for ''6 ...
* Andrés Oppenheimer * Arianna Huffington * Carlos Montero *
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*
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* Fernando del Rincón * Geovanny Vicente *
Patricia Janiot Ángela Patricia Janiot Martirena (born October 2, 1963) is a Colombian-American journalist, news anchor, model and beauty pageant titleholder. She worked for 25 years at CNN en Español as the senior news anchor where she established her ca ...
*
Pedro Bordaberry Juan Pedro Bordaberry Herrán (born 28 April 1960) is a Uruguayan attorney, lecturer, and politician, serving as Senate of Uruguay, Senator of the Republic since 2025. He previously served in the same position from 2010 to 2020, as Ministry of To ...
* Sylvia Garcia *
CNN en Español Cable News Network en Español (CNN en Español, stylized as CN͠N) is a Pan-American Spanish-language news channel, owned by CNN Worldwide, a news division for Warner Bros. Discovery. It was launched on pay television, on March 17, 1997. Hi ...


References


External links

*
Audiovisual Media
NewMedia Universidad Francisco Marroquín
Honorary Doctoral Degrees
Universidad Francisco Marroquín
Carlos Alberto Montaner
''
Freedom Collection Freedom Collection is a digital repository sponsored by the George W. Bush Institute at the George W. Bush Presidential Center on Southern Methodist University's campus in Dallas, Texas. The collection documents major players in human rights and ...
'' interview {{DEFAULTSORT:Montaner, Carlos Alberto 1943 births 2023 deaths People from Havana Spanish journalists Cuban journalists Cuban male journalists Cuban emigrants to Spain Exiles of the Cuban Revolution in Spain Escapees from Cuban detention Cuban escapees Exiles of the Cuban Revolution in the United States Deaths from neurodegenerative disease Political prisoners in Cuba Journalists imprisoned in Cuba