Miguel Barnet is an author who edited and translated all over the world, but one of his books perhaps stands out in his extraordinary literary itinerary: Biografía de un cimarrón (Biography of a Maroon).

The Italian publisher Quodlibet has just published in its Historia Viva collection, the eighty-sixth edition of this 1966 title, with notes by Alejo Carpentier and Italo Calvino.

Calvino wrote of this work: «A unique document, one of those rare cases in which ethnographic and sociological material spontaneously assumes, by its internal force, a poetic and literary value».

And therein lies the key to the extraordinary transcendence of this text: more than a testimony, it is a testimonial novel, it becomes a committed and inspired recreation of a first-person narrative. And that narration summarizes and explains significant aspects of national history.

Miguel Barnet’s book opened a path in Cuban literature. And beyond literature. Not for nothing is it considered a classic.

When Miguel Barnet met him, in 1963, Esteban Montejo, the protagonist, was over a hundred years old. It has been said that he was a shrewd, stubborn, and proud man, with extremely vivid memories.

This book, the editor’s note, was born out of months of recordings of conversations the two had at the Casa de los Veteranos in Havana.

The result is a marvelous chronicle, ranging from the wit and the plantation to the bush, evoking the vicissitudes of an individual in a particularly demanding context.

This recent Italian edition was edited by Elena Zapponi, an anthropologist from the University of La Sapienza, who also wrote an epilogue in which she analyzes the historical and linguistic values of the work, its originality in the testimonial genre, and the richness of its lyrical implications.

A note released by the publishing house announces that the testimonial novel will be presented in different cities in Italy with the presence of Miguel Barnet. Quodlibet Publishing House will soon publish the novels Canción de Rachel and La Vida Real and other significant texts by Barnet.