Listen to podcast interview with Author Tom Gjelten about the Bacardi family business and Cuba

Posted by Elena del Valle on May 4, 2009

Author Tom Gjelten

Photo: Paul J. Richards

A podcast interview with Tom Gjelten, author of Bacardi and the Long Fight for Cuba: The Biography of a Cause is available in the Podcast Section of Hispanic Marketing & Public Relations, HispanicMPR.com. During the podcast, Tom discusses his new book with Elena del Valle, host of the HispanicMPR.com podcast.

Tom covers intelligence and national security issues for NPR News and is a regular panelist on the PBS program Washington Week. From 1986 to 1990 he was NPR’s Latin America correspondent in Mexico, and from 1990 to 1994 he was in Berlin as Central Europe correspondent. He covered the wars in Nicaragua, El Salvador, Guatemala and Colombia, as well as the Gulf War of 1990-1991 and the wars in Croatia and Bosnia.

He based his first book, Sarajevo Daily: A City and Its Newspaper Under Siege, on his experiences while reporting from Sarajevo from 1992 to 1994. The book was praised by The New York Times as “a chilling portrayal of a city’s slow murder” and selected by the American Library Association as a Notable Nonfiction Book. Tom is also the author of Professionalism in War Reporting: A Correspondent’s View (Carnegie Corporation) and a contributor to Crimes of War: What the Public Should Know (W. W. Norton).

He has also reported extensively from Cuba in recent years, visiting the island more than a dozen times. He has won numerous awards for his work including an Overseas Press Club award for “Best Business or Economic Reporting in Radio or TV,” the Overseas Press Club’s Lowell Thomas Award, a George Polk Award and a Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Award. A graduate of the University of Minnesota, he began his professional career as a public school teacher and a freelance writer.

To listen to the interview, scroll down until you see “Podcast” on the right hand side, then select “HMPR Tom Gjelten,” listen to it on your cell phone through VoiceIndigo (click on the Mobilize button), click on the play button below or download the MP3 file to your iPod or MP3 player to listen on the go, in your car or at home. To download it, click on the arrow of the recording you wish to copy and save it to disk. The podcast will remain listed in the May 2009 section of the podcast archive.

Bacardi and the Long Fight for Cuba book cover

Click here to buy Bacardi and the Long Fight for Cuba

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Veteran journalist explores famous Cuba rum family history, business

Posted by Elena del Valle on March 27, 2009

Bacardi and the Long Fight for Cuba book cover

In Bacardi and the Long Fight for Cuba: The Biography of a Cause (Viking, $27.95) Tom Gjelten, a correspondent for international issues for National Public Radio (NPR), uses a literary magnifying glass to examine the history of five generations of the Bacardi family, world famous rum makers exiled from Cuba. The 413-page hardcover book, published in 2008, is divided into 23 chapters tracing 150 years of the family from the 1860s to the post-Castro era.

The idea for the book was born in 1999 as a way to tell the modern story of Cuba with a new twist, and Gjelten began writing it in 2003. He believes the Bacardis had the type of forward thinking community oriented mentality the island needed and failed to produce.

In the process of researching and writing the book he interviewed 100 people and conducted extensive archival research in Santiago and Havana, Cuba as well as Washington, D.C. and Miami, Florida. He traveled to Cuba 15 times and dedicated many weeks to the project in South Florida.

Gjelten believes the salient aspect of his findings is that although the Bacardi family business remains almost 100 percent family owned the company has survived through five generations of the family, and is thriving as a modern multinational company. The book has two sections of black and white photos of the Bacardi family, factories, buildings and people, including Fidel Castro and Che Guevara.

Gjeltenis, a resident of Arlington, Virginia, is a regular panelist on Washington Week, a PBS radio program. He received George Polk, Robert F. Kennedy and Overseas Press Club awards for his journalistic work from the former Yugoslavia. Prior to Bacardi and the Long Fight for Cuba, he wrote Sarajavo Daily: A City and its Newspaper Under Siege.

Bacardi and the Long Fight for Cuba book cover

Click here to buy Bacardi and the Long Fight for Cuba