Cuba's Fidel Castro to Publish First Volume of Memoirs

(July 28) -- Fidel Castro put months of his seclusion from a serious illness to good use, it seems, and the results will appear next month: the first volume of his memoirs, titled "The Strategic Victory."

Castro, who turns 84 next month, said it would include a short autobiography, because he didn't want to respond one day to "countless questions" about his childhood and how he became a "revolutionary and armed combatant."

But the main thrust of the 25-chapter book will be a detailed account of how a few hundred rebels defeated the Cuban army in a battle in the first week of August 1958 that led to the overthrow of the government of Fulgencio Batista on Jan. 1, 1959.

Silvio Rodriguez, Cuban Government / Mambo / Getty Images

Former Cuban leader Fidel Castro, here on Monday, said the first volume of his memoirs would recount how rebels overthrew the government of Fulgencio Batista in 1959.

The book will include pictures, maps and the names of the rebels who took part and those who died.

Castro said he had pondered what the title should be and had considered "How 300 Defeated 10,000" but decided that would sound like a science fiction story.

Some of the final parts of the book will be read on radio on Aug. 7 -- a week before his birthday -- Castro says on the Cuban website cubadebate.cu, and will focus on the final battle of Las Mercedes.

"The defeat of the enemy offensive, after 74 days of incessant fighting, meant the strategic shift of the war," Castro writes. "From that moment the fate of the tyranny was finally cast."

He said 31 rebels died in the battle and added: "The enemy suffered more than a thousand casualties, including more than 300 dead and 443 prisoners, and at least five large complete units of their forces were killed, captured or disrupted."

What he described as the "great victory over the enemy offensive in the summer of 1958" became "the irreversible turning point of the war."

Publication of the book comes some 50 years after the strategic battle. It also comes after Castro ended his years of seclusion following intestinal surgery in 2006 by making seven public appearances in recent weeks, including three televised speeches.

He said he was "now encouraged" to work on a second volume, which if no one comes up with a different title he intends to call "The Final Strategic Counteroffensive."