Born in Villanueva de Aroza, Galicia, Spain in 1900 to a Spanish soldier and a Cuban mother. At the age of seven moved to Havana with his parents. As a teenage mariner he traveled to Mexico and New York, where he worked as a busboy, lumberjack, and miner. Montenegro labored in a weapons factory in Philadelphia, where he survived the Spanish influenza epidemic. He returned to Havana in 1919 and soon committed homicide during a street fight. Sentenced to 15 years in El Principe prison, became a novelist during his confinement. Published “El Renuevo” in 1929 and later married educator and poet Emma Perez Tellez before his release from prison in 1931. The couple joined the Cuban Communist Party in 1935. Montenegro published “Dos Barcos” (1934), “Hombres Sin Mujer” (1938) and “Los Heroes” (1941). In 1937 went as a war correspondent and confidential agent of the Communist Party to the Spanish Civil War. Wrote his experiences the following year as “Tres Meses con la Tropa de Choque: Division Campesino.” Montenegro and a group of Cuban Communists who sided with Earl Browder during the Duclos incident were expelled from the party on Aug. 22, 1945 for advocating rapprochement with the U. S. He then was one of the founders of the weekly magazine “Tiempo en Cuba” to combat the Stalinists. In the 1950s, he and his wife published “Gente” magazine in Havana. After Castro seized power in 1959, went into exile in Costa Rica and Mexico, arriving in the U.S. in December 1962. Lived in public housing and died in abject poverty.
Born in Villanueva de Aroza, Galicia, Spain in 1900 to a Spanish soldier and a Cuban mother. At the age of seven moved to Havana with his parents. As a teenage mariner he traveled to Mexico and New York, where he worked as a busboy, lumberjack, and miner. Montenegro labored in a weapons factory in Philadelphia, where he survived the Spanish influenza epidemic. He returned to Havana in 1919 and soon committed homicide during a street fight. Sentenced to 15 years in El Principe prison, became a novelist during his confinement. Published “El Renuevo” in 1929 and later married educator and poet Emma Perez Tellez before his release from prison in 1931. The couple joined the Cuban Communist Party in 1935. Montenegro published “Dos Barcos” (1934), “Hombres Sin Mujer” (1938) and “Los Heroes” (1941). In 1937 went as a war correspondent and confidential agent of the Communist Party to the Spanish Civil War. Wrote his experiences the following year as “Tres Meses con la Tropa de Choque: Division Campesino.” Montenegro and a group of Cuban Communists who sided with Earl Browder during the Duclos incident were expelled from the party on Aug. 22, 1945 for advocating rapprochement with the U. S. He then was one of the founders of the weekly magazine “Tiempo en Cuba” to combat the Stalinists. In the 1950s, he and his wife published “Gente” magazine in Havana. After Castro seized power in 1959, went into exile in Costa Rica and Mexico, arriving in the U.S. in December 1962. Lived in public housing and died in abject poverty.
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