Margaret Randall

Margaret Randall is the author of dozens of books of poetry and prose, including Che on My Mind, and the translator of When Rains Became Floods: A Child Soldier's Story.

Randall's new book is Haydée Santamaría, Cuban Revolutionary: She Led by Transgression.

Recently I asked the author about what she was reading. Her reply:

I read a lot of poetry and non-fiction, rarely novels or short stories. Recently I read God's Bankers by Gerald Posner, and then read it again, and then again. It's a big book filled with detail: tracing centuries of the Vatican's money trail leads all over the place. Pope Francis's attempts to reign in the Vatican Bank make this book particularly timely.

Poet V. B. Price's Broken and Reset, a compilation of his poetry over several decades, is a beautiful read, one of those books you want to put on your night table and return to when the spirit moves.

I've recently reread Blanche Wiesen Cook's Eleanor Roosevelt (volumes I and II) because I know volume III will be coming out soon and I want to be prepared.

Joy Harjo's Conflict Resolution for Holy Beings, Renato Rosaldo's The Day of Shelly's Death, and Susan Sherman's The Light that Puts an End to Dreams (all poetry) are recent reads that have given me a lot. And, just to mention the odd novel, Mark Behr's Embrace is one I have just finished for the second time--a monumental work.

Visit Margaret Randall's website.

My Book, The Movie: Haydée Santamaría, Cuban Revolutionary.

--Marshal Zeringue