Moscow, May 17 (Prensa Latina) Retired Lieutenant General and Doctor in Historical Sciences Nikolai Leonov personally received the Reader''s Grand Prize today for his book ''Raúl Castro: A Man in Revolution'' at a ceremony at the Cuban embassy in this country.
Speaking at the ceremony of the award granted by the Cuban Book Institute and the Ministry of Culture, Emilio Lozada, the ambassador in Russia, emphasized that it was a prize of the Cuban people who is a very demanding reader.
Lozada recalled that in 2018 it will be the 65th anniversary of Leonov's first meeting with Raul Castro, on a ship from Genoa, Italy, to Veracruz, Mexico, a friendship that emerged at the roots of the Cuban Revolution, the diplomat said.
That year marked the beginning of the relations between Cuba and the Soviet Union, exposed to the difficulties, but now they are in the best moment of its history, he considered.
The award was presented by General Igor Kurednoi, president of the Cuba-Russia Friendship Association, who emphasized the importance of the book written by Leonov.
The work of the retired general was published in the Russian language in 2015, the following year was presented in Spanish at the International Book Fair in Havana, it was published in English and this year it is in Turkish and Chinese.
The book tells the life of Raul Castro from his birth on June 3, 1931, up to the present, in a writing parallel to the events of the Cuban Revolution, all accompanied by some 80 photos, some of them