Press release
On the death of Juan Manuel Salvat Roque, Cuban patriot, publisher
Juan Manuel Salvat at Belen Jesuit Preparatory School (2017)
Contacts: John Suarez (612) 367-6845 and Janisset Rivero (786) 208-6056
Center for a Free Cuba. November 27, 2024. Washington DC. The Center for a Free Cuba released earlier today the following statement:
The death of Juan Manuel Salvat Roque in Miami after a long illness is a great loss to Cubans in the island and around the world who benefited from his tireless efforts to promote Cuban culture, literature, and creating a space for meetings, gatherings, book presentations, dialogues, and debates on Cuban history, the existing Cuban reality, and the future of Cuba.
He was a student leader in Cuba, forced into exile due to his opposition to the Soviet presence in Cuba, and the betrayal of the democratic aspirations of those who sought the overthrow of Fulgencio Batista in 1959. Salvat took part in the early armed resistance to the Cuban dictatorship, but shifted to the battle of ideas in the mid 1960s.
Through his editorial Ediciones Universal, beginning in 1965, he kept Cuban culture alive publishing the work of icons of Cuban thought and literature such as Lydia Cabrera, Guillermo Cabrera Infante, José Ángel Buesa, Reinaldo Arenas, Heberto Padilla, Carlos Ripoll, Rafael Rojas, Ariel Hidalgo, Juan Manuel Cao, and Gustavo Pérez-Firmat, among others.
The executive director of the Center for a Free Cuba John Suarez said, “The Cuban people, with the passing of Juan Manuel Salvat Roque, have lost a patriot with a tremendous dedication to freedom for Cuba both in the island and in exile. He was both a man of action, and of letters.”
Juan Manuel Salvat Roque, Requiescat in pace.
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