Give Me Liberty: The True Story of Oswaldo Payá and His Daring Quest for a Free Cuba

Pulitzer winner Hoffman (The Billion Dollar Spy) delivers an engrossing history of modern Cuba focused on democratic activist Oswaldo Payá. Sketching the island’s tumultuous history following the overthrow of Spanish rule in 1898, Hoffman notes that Cuba’s best hope for democracy came in 1940, with the adoption of a new constitution that included a provision stipulating that citizens could propose new laws if they gathered at least 10,000 signatures. After Fidel Castro’s 1959 victory in the Cuban revolution, however, the constitution was gutted, along with “the promise of elections” and free press. Born in 1952 and raised Catholic, Payá refused to join the Communist Youth League, which would have required renouncing his faith. He went on to found the movimiento democracy movement and, in 1996, launched the Varela Project, a door-to-door campaign to collect signatures for “a citizen initiative demanding free speech, a free press, freedom of association,” and other reforms. Despite constant surveillance and harassment, Payá gathered more than 11,000 signatures, but Castro dismissed the campaign as a U.S.-backed conspiracy to overthrow his government. In 2012, Payá died in a car accident that his relatives believe was engineered by the government. Though slow-moving at times, this is an intriguing and often inspiring look at the courage of one man’s convictions. (June)