This is the story of the period in which Fidel Castro and his young companeros, including two women, were imprisoned after the July 26, 1953, attack on the Moncada military garrison in Santiago de Cuba and how the Batista dictatorship was eventually forced to release them. From solitary confinement, Fidel Castro wrote: I don’t think we are wasting our time in prison… For us this prison is an academy of struggle, and when the time comes, nothing will be able to stop us.

The author Mario Mencia has included in this book many previously unpublished photographs and documents, including Fidel Castro’s letters from prison, as well as an extensive glossary and chronology that are invaluable for students of Cuban history.

Mario Mencia’s The Fertile Prison is the most comprehensive account of Castro’s time in prison. –Peter Bourne, author of Castro.