What Lies across the Water: The Real Story of the Cuban Five

It should be highlighted first, with indelible letters, the ethical, ideological-aesthetical, historical and literary values that readers can find in this jewel of specialized literature, which narrates—based on the findings of an extensive historical, legal and journalistic research—the via crucis heroes René González, Fernando González, Gerardo Hernández, Antonio Guerrero, and Ramón Labañino underwent during their unfair imprisonment in US jails for over 15 years.

This well-documented volume narrates the story of the Cuban Five, sent to the United States to fight counter-revolutionary groups operating in southern Florida, and thus to thwart the attempts of terrorist attacks against the biggest island of the Caribbean.

According to the also historian and research, “[…] the story of the Cuban Five isn’t really the story of the Five at all. Or, at least, it’s not just their story. And it isn’t a simple linear narrative. It’s a cascading accumulation of incident and irritant, of connivance and consequence, a parallel, converging, diverging narrative featuring an ensemble cast of eclectic characters on both sides of the Straits of Florida: […] spies, terrorists, revolutionaries, counter-revolutionaries, cops, mercenaries, politicians, heroes, villains, journalists […] whose personal ambitions, actions, loyalties, vanities, secrets, strengths and foibles collectively weave larger narratives […] about Cuban-American relations, about the war on [terror], about hypocrisy, about truth and fiction, about right and wrong […] Perhaps it was the quicksand complexity of it all that ultimately convinced me this story needed to be told […] by someone who didn’t already know which versions of which stories were true.”

The epilogue of the said edition was written by its author, as the publication of the volume in our country was done after the freedom of the Five, and Stephen Kimber didn’t want that part of the story to go unnoticed, as he values the need for the story to be known in each of its details.

Gerardo Hernández Nordelo considers, like the author of this review, that What Lies Across the Water is the best book written, till the present, on the case of the Five Heroes.

Translation: Yanely Interián (Cubarte)