Unión de Escritores y Artistas de Cuba / UNEAC (cover design: Darío Mora; author: Roberto Fernández Retamar), "Cuaderno Paralelo," March 1972. Offset print, book.

"Cuaderno Paralelo" (Parallel Notebook) by Roberto Fernández Retamar documents Cuban solidarity with the Vietnamese struggle against U.S. imperialism through poetry written during a historic February-March 1970 journey through the Democratic Republic of Vietnam. The cover design by Darío Mora employs powerful photojournalism, featuring a halftone-screened image of revolutionary soldiers standing beneath a flag with a prominent yellow star—captured during the filming of the documentary "Tercer mundo, tercera guerra mundial" (Third World, Third World War). The flag's vibrant red and yellow coloration against the beige halftone field creates dramatic visual tension, while the Girón publishing logo anchors the composition, connecting Cuban and Vietnamese revolutionary movements through shared visual language.

Roberto Fernández Retamar (1930-2019), one of Cuba's most significant intellectuals, served as professor at the University of Havana and director of Casa de las Américas magazine, positioning him at the center of Cuban revolutionary cultural production. As part of a six-member Cuban delegation invited by North Vietnam's war crimes investigation commission, Fernández Retamar witnessed firsthand the devastation of U.S. bombing campaigns, transforming his observational notes into poems that parallel his documentary mission. Published by UNEAC's Girón imprint, the collection exemplifies Cuba's commitment to Third World solidarity and anti-imperialist cultural production, demonstrating how Cuban writers actively participated in international struggles, creating literary testimonies that connected Caribbean and Southeast Asian resistance movements during the height of Cold War conflicts.