Cuba: In Celia Sanchez's footsteps

Owen Bennett Jones presents a special essay by Linda Pressly, tracing the life and times of one woman who shaped the course of Cuban history.

But did the country's revolution sideline her - or remake her story for its own ends?

Celia Sanchez joined Fidel Castro's movement against the dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista back in the early 1950s.

When Castro came to power in 1959, she ran his office in Havana. She died in 1980.

You may not have heard of Celia Sanchez but within Cuba she is an iconic figure - and Linda Pressly wanted to know more.

Her effort to understand Celia Sanchez took her to the Sierra Maestra - the mountains of eastern Cuba, where Castro's rebel movement was based.