Haydée Santamaría Cuadrado

Haydée Santamaría Cuadrado (born December 30, 1922, Encrucijada, Cuba—died July 28, 1980, Havana) was a Cuban revolutionary and politician who became one of the most prominent women in Cuba under the government of Fidel Castro.

Santamaría and her brother Abel fought beside Castro during the abortive 1953 coup that provided the name for his 26th of July Movement. Both Santamaría’s brother and her fiancé were tortured to death after the group’s attack on the Moncada army barracks, and she was captured and subjected to brutal interrogations and a seven-month prison term. After her release, Santamaría joined Castro’s guerrillas at his Sierra Maestra camp. Shortly after Castro came to power in 1959, she founded the Casa de las Américas, an organization that, among other things, presents one of the longest-standing prizes in Latin American literature. Santamaría became (1965) one of five women in the 100-member Central Committee of the Cuban Communist Party. In 1976 she became a member of the Council of State. At the time of her death she was serving as director of Cuba’s cultural centre and state publishing house.