Anita's Revolution

"Anita's Revolution" is a work of historical fiction, a book for all ages. The setting for the story is Cuba, 1961. One quarter of Cuba's six million people are illiterate; one million adults and half a million school-age children. Cuba's new government, led by Fidel Castro, is determined to give these illiterate people and the country a different future. But how? A national literacy campaign is planned and Cuban youth of all ages are called upon to volunteer as literacy teachers prepared to go wherever needed to live with or near the learners for months on end. The protagonist Anita, a 14-year-old girl, is one of the more than 100,000 young people who volunteer. Many, including Anita, endure primitive conditions, great challenges, and even dangers while on their assignments. Although thousands of adults were also literacy volunteers, young people were the core and heart of the campaign. On December 22, 1961 Cuba raised a flag in Havana's gigantic civic square proclaiming Cuba: Territory Free From Illiteracy. Due to the dedication and enthusiasm of those youth, illiteracy was almost abolished. The country was transformed. Anita's Revolution honours the potential of youth, and champions the importance of education and knowledge.
About the Author: After graduating QUEEN'S University in Kingston, Ontario, Canada in 1986 with a B.A. (Hon) in Spanish and Italian Language and Literature, I worked as a translator, translating seventeen Robert Munsch children's books into Spanish. During the late '80s and '90s, I became an environmental activist, and wrote environmental columns. From 1992-1995, I served as Mayor of Belleville, Ontario, Canada and as such, wrote and delivered many public addresses. In 1995, I moved to Tofino, British Columbia, and there began writing continually, publishing articles, film reviews, poetry and prose for local and regional publications. A monthly magazine with broad distribution called Tofino Time published a monthly feature I wrote titled Tofino Profile. In September of 2009, I self-published a book of short stories about Tofino titled ROAD'S END: TALES OF TOFINO. I now live in Victoria, BC, and continue to write daily. Anita's Revolution is my first novel. With my family, I lived and worked in Cuba during the mid 1960s, first as a translator, then as a language teacher. This was shortly after the time of the national literacy campaign described in my recently-published novel, Anita's Revolution. The role of youth in that campaign inspired the novel. In 2004 I visited Cuba for several months to research the literacy campaign. I interviewed many people who, as teenagers, were among those very brigadistas, those volunteer youth teachers whose dedication and enthusiasm changed the course of their country's history.