Alejandro de la Fuente

Alejandro de la Fuente was born and grew up in Havana, Cuba, where he worked as a researcher at the Institute of History and coordinated a research group for the Attorney General of Cuba. He also taught legal history at the University of Havana between 1986 and 1990. These were years of hope and tension in Cuba: young intellectuals were trying (under the influence of Perestroika in the Soviet Union) to democratize the country’s cultural and political lives. In the early 1990s, however, many of them decided to leave after realizing that the government would not tolerate change. Thanks to a “Quincentenary of the Discovery of America” award by the Bank of Spain, Alejandro managed to leave Cuba and went to Europe in 1991. He completed a PhD in History at the University of Pittsburgh, where he now teaches. He is a specialist on slavery, comparative race relations, and Cuban history. His work has been published in English, Spanish, French, Portuguese, Italian and German.