An American Woman in Cuba

An American Woman in Cuba: Mary Todd, Translator and Teacher traces the adventurous, turbulent life of Mary Todd (1941–2016). The daughter of far-left parents, Todd grew up during McCarthyism. When a major weekly accused her father, Laurence Todd, Bureau Chief for the Soviet news agency TASS, of "spying for Stalin," ten-year-old Mary was ostracized and marked.

Todd found healing in early civil rights activities. Attending Radcliffe, she rejected its white privilege and transferred to Knoxville College, a historically Black institution. She was living with a Black friend in segregated Oklahoma when she found herself under FBI surveillance and fled to Cuba.

Todd trusted Fidel Castro’s attempts to create equality in multiracial society. But Cuba remained macho, and she was aggrieved and traumatized by horrific domestic violence, including the violent death of her young son. Despite overwhelming tragedy, Todd became a sought-after translator, attending international meetings across Africa, Latin America, and Asia, and rendering the works of Cuban authors and filmmakers into English.

Drawing on archival sources and personal accounts, An American Woman in Cuba offers a compelling portrait of a woman whose life intersected with some of the most charged political movements of the twentieth century.