IN 1959, one of the revolutionary leaders in Cuba, Haydée Santamaria, a hundred years old this year, arrived at a cultural centre in the heart of Havana, Cuba. This building, the revolutionaries decided, would be committed to the promotion of Latin American art and culture and it would become – eventually – a beacon for the progressive transformation of the hemisphere’s cultural world. Renamed the Casa de las Américas, the home of the Americas, it would become the heartbeat of cultural developments from Chile to Mexico.