Ann Louise Bardach scores a rave for her new Cuba book

Fidel Castro wept on several occasions after receiving a colostomy that saved his life, and the cigar-loving Cuban dictator sometimes uses an oxygen chamber, reports Ann Louise Bardach in her new book, After Fidel: A Death Foretold in Miami, Havana and Washington, according to a rave review by the Associated Press.

Bardach, who will be among the more than 300 authors at this year’s Miami Book Fair International, is also the author of Cuba Confidential: Love and Vengeance in Miami and Havana, one of the Los Angeles’ Times Ten Best Books of the year in 2002, and Cuba: A Traveler’s Literary Companion, among others books.

A veteran journalist, Bardach has also reported on Mexico, women in Islamic countries and foreign policy for Vanity Fair, Slate, and numerous magazines, newspapers and TV.

Laura Wides-Munoz, AP Hispanic Affairs Writer, praises Bardach’s ability “to weave together the personal and the political, bringing to life the complex history of the tiny Caribbean Island and its decades-old feud with the world’s superpower.”

Writes Wides-Munoz: “Among the new tidbits: the former cigar-chomping Castro has frequently used an oxygen chamber; a doctor present the day Castro underwent a lifesaving colostomy said the Cuban leader cried several times after the operation; and Castro’s first wife Myrta Diaz-Balart (whose fervently anti-Castro nephews represent South Florida in the U.S. House of Representatives) has frequently visited him since he fell ill in 2006.”

Fidel Castro is 83 years old

If the book has a flaw, Wides-Munoz observes, its the anonymous sourcing for many of Bardach’s “juiciest” details. But, she adds, that’s unavoidable in Cuba, “where offering outsiders insights into the personal life of the Castros has sometimes been met with severe punishment.”

Bardach will be only one among many writers with politically themed books at this year’s Miami Book Fair International, Nov. 8-15. Others include Sen. Bob Graham (America: The Owner’s Manual); Sen. Bob Menendez (Growing American Roots); Ralph Nader (Only the Super-Rich Can Save Us); Norman Podhoretz (Why Are Jews Liberal?); Joyce Purnick (Mike Bloomberg); and Frank Luntz (What Americans Want…Really).