Miguel Barnet

Miguel Ángel Barnet Lanza (born January 28, 1940) is a Cuban writer, novelist and ethnographer. Known as an expert on Afro-Cuban culture, he studied sociology at the University of Havana, under Fernando Ortiz, the pioneer of Cuban anthropology. Barnet is best known for his Biografia de un cimmarón (1966), the life of Esteban Montejo, a former slave who was 103 when they met. He had escaped and lived as a maroon before slavery was abolished in Cuba.Barnet's style of testimonial in this work became a standard for ethnography in Latin America. One of his later testimonial books, Gallego, was adapted as a 1988 film by the same name.