Barnet came from a prominent Cuban family of Catalan descent.

He spent
part of his childhood in Atlanta, Georgia, U.S., and was fluent in English.
Though not a member of the Communist Party, he remained in Cuba, faithful
to the Castro regime. From 1995 he headed the Havana-based Fernando
Ortiz Foundation, which promotes and preserves the works of his mentor, who
was a prominent anthropologist and scholar of Afro-Cuban culture.
Barnet is best known for his Biografía de un cimarrón (1966; Biography of a
Runaway Slave, also published as The Autobiography of a Runaway Slave), a
trend-setting book that inaugurated and then became the standard for what
was to be known as testimonio, or testimonial narrative, in Latin America. In
these works, a subject who has been interviewed on tape by the writer tells
his life in the first person. The author transcribes and edits the material to give
it final form. Subjects are usually marginalized members of society, such as
the centenarian former slave, Esteban Montejo, whose story is told
in Biografía de un cimarrón. Barnet derived this technique from his training
in ethnography, but his unqualified success stems from his being first and
foremost a poet with an ear for the mythic quality of the informant’s tale.
WHAT IS TESTIMONIO?
Standard
Characteristics of Testimonio
 Spanish for “testimony”
 novel or novella-length narrative in book or leaflet
 told in the first-person perspective by a narrator who is the protagonist or witness of the event
 narration is a significant life experience on tremendous physical or psychological trauma caused
by social injustice or human rights violation
 subjects are usually the underrepresented or oppressed social group
 includes literary elements like metaphors, dialogues and poetry and resources from other texts
like newspaper clippings and quotes from leaders

Purpose of Testimonio
 spreads the awareness of a problem such as repression, poverty, imprisonment, kidnap and
struggle for survival
 gives voice to a marginalized group of people who suffer in similar ways
 provokes the society to take action against the unfair treatment towards the oppressed