For years people have tried to persuade the leader of the Cuban Revolution to tell his own life story. Here, finally, Ignacio Ramonet, well-known activist and editor of "Le Monde Diplomatique", has succeeded. For the first time, in a series of probing interviews, Fidel Castro describes his life, from the 1950s all the way up to the present day. He discusses his parents, his earliest influences, the beginnings of the revolution, his relationship with Che Guevara, the Bay of Pigs, the Carter years, Cuban migration to the US. And along the way, Ramonet challenges Castro to discuss his views on a number of controversial questions, from human rights and freedom of the press to the repression of homosexuality and the survival of the death penalty, and he gives his opinion of other leaders, alive and dead, including George Bush and Tony Blair.

Ignacio Ramonet is a specialist on geopolitics, economics and the history of culture and a professor of communication theory at the University of Denis Diderot in Paris. He is the long-time editor of the French magazine Le Monde Diplomatique, one of the founders of ATTAC international and a key player in organising the first World Social Forum in Porto Alegre. In addition, Ramonet also founded the NGO Media Watch Global. He also frequently contributes to El Pais and participates in an advisory council to the television network TeleSUR.