From the Pulitzer Prize-winning Washington Post reporter David E.
Hoffman comes the riveting biography of Oswaldo Payá, a dissident who
dared to defy Fidel Castro, inspiring thousands of Cubans to fight for
democracy.
Oswaldo Payá was seven years old when Fidel Castro seized power in Cuba,
promising to create a "free, democratic, and just Cuba." But Castro
instead created an authoritarian regime with little tolerance of free
speech or thought. His secret police were trained to crush dissent by
East Germany's ruthless Stasi.
Throughout Cuba's 20th century history, the dream of democracy was often
just within reach, only to be dashed by dictatorship and revived again
by a new generation. Payá inherited this dream and it became his life's
work. As a teenager in Communist Cuba, he led a protest against the
Soviet-led shattering of the Prague Spring. Before long, he was sent to
Castro's forced labor camps. Payá later became a leading voice of
opposition and formed a pro-democracy movement. A devoted Catholic, he
championed a simple, bedrock belief that rights are bestowed by God, and
not the state. Every day, he witnessed these rights trampled in Cuba. He
could not stay silent.
Payá's most daring challenge to the Cuban government was the Varela
Project, a one-page citizen petition demanding free speech, a free
press, freedom of association, freedom of belief, private enterprise,
free elections, and freedom for political prisoners. More than 35,000
people signed the Varela Project, an extraordinary outpouring of
protest--with nothing more than pen and paper--against Castro's decades
of despotism. The regime responded by ignoring the petition, arresting
dozens of Payá's followers, and sending them to prison for many years.
After receiving multiple death threats, Payá was killed in a suspicious
car wreck on a remote country road.
Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter David E. Hoffman returns with an epic
portrait of a lone individual who had the courage, faith, and
persistence to struggle for democracy against an unforgiving dictator.
At its heart, Give Me Liberty is a sweeping account of one country's
tragic and continuing struggle for its freedom.
