A.L. Bardach has written for most major media publications in the U.S. and U.K. (New York Times, Washington Post, POLITICO, Wall Street Journal magazine, Los Angeles Times, The New Yorker, The Atlantic, The Guardian, The Financial Times, The Bulwark, The New Republic, Slate, Newsweek, The Daily Beast as Writer-at-Large and Vanity Fair, where she was a staff reporter for a decade).
A prize-winning journalist and author, she has relayed between crime reporting, politics, foreign policy, the Caribbean and Latin America, to matters of faith, belief and the origins of The New Age. She has covered an eclectic range of political and cultural issues, including a deep dive into the Cuba/Miami/Washington nexus, the Middle East, and the life and work of India’s patron saint, Vivekananda.
The Columbia Journalism Review called her “the go-to journalist on all things Cuban and Miami” and she has won the praise from New Journalism icons Tom Wolfe and Gay Talese, as well as the eminent 20th century critics, Alfred Kazin and Irving Howe, with whom she studied.
Books by A. L. Bardach
“A. L. Bardach’s “Without Fidel” is news between hard covers by a relentless reporter who writes like a dream.”
— Tom Wolfe
A.L Bardach On Fidel Castro’s life and legacy
A. L. Bardach spent extensive time interviewing Fidel Castro, other family members, & scores of officials on both sides of Florida Straits ….
A Reporter’s Journey inside The Two Cubas
Interviewing Fidel Castro for Vanity Fair, 1994
ALB with Jerry Brown (then mayor of Oakland) in Santa Clara, Cuba 2000 during Elian Gonzalez saga
A. L. Bardach at gravesite of former Cuban president Carlos Prio; Woodlawn Cemetery , Miami
with Fidel Castro, at the Consejo de Estado, Havana- 1994
Eloy Gutierrez Menoyo, major guerrilla leader of the Cuban Revolution; later, noted Castro opponent who spent 22 years in Cuban prisons. At his home in Miami, 1994
A. L. Bardach, Baracoa, Cuba - 2002
Col. Patricio de la Guardia (l.) and Col. Tony Castel w/ Castel's son (in middle) - Miramar, Havana, Cuba - Aug. 2010
Salvador Lew, attorney exile leader, with close friend, Juanita Castro Ruz - 2000
![Fidel Castro's Belen High School yearbook entry, [class of 1945]](https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5e93aaa2ca1cec725d1531ff/1592168743231-JSQ1HWSLG0RRGJIGLMNC/07.+95160004.jpg)
Fidel Castro's Belen High School yearbook entry, [class of 1945]
Gen. Chino Figueredo (on right) w/ Bob Lesser and Bob Burgos - 1998 during Pope John Paul's visit to Havana
A. L. Bardach with Juanita Castro Ruz, sister of Fidel and Raúl Castro; revolucionary-turned -dissident, at her pharmacy in Little Havana before her retirement
Maria Gonzales, who escaped the 1976 Cubana plane shootdown; at her salon in Miami Beach
Exile leaders Salvador Lew & patriarch Rafael Diaz-Balart- Coral Gables, Fla. Oct. 2001
Salvador Lew, ALB, Orlando Bosch, Adriana Bosch, grandson - Bosch home; Miami 2006; Miami
Lilia Medina, Miami urban planner, whose father flew Batista out of Cuba on Dec. 31, 1959
Max Lesnik, Miami radio host and friend of Fidel Castro
Norberto Fuentes, writer/ journalist/former Fidel confidante. Detained by Cuban government in 1994, he was eventually released after lobbying of writers Gabriel García Márquez and William Kennedy; in Miami
Angel Fernandez Varela, Miami; Fidel Castro's high school teacher at Belen
Cuban exile militant Orlando Bosch, in front of his painting in Westchester, Miami home- 2006
E. Howard Hunt at his Miami Shores home - Aug. 2004
ALB at Hatuey monument in Baracoa, Cuba-2002
Vivekananda and the Birth of the (Old) New Age
A.L. Bardach writings on Swami Vivekananda, the Hindu monk who was the first to introduce meditation to the West in the 1890s.
How Yoga Won the West: New York Times (10/01/2011)
What Did J.D. Salinger, Leo Tolstoy, and Sarah Bernhardt Have in Common?: Wall Street Journal (03/30/2012)
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ALB with John Lydon (Johnny Rotten) of The Sex Pistols, Public Image.
Gramercy Park Hotel, NYC. 1980 - photo by Marcia Resnick
UC Santa Barbara Library Set to Acquire A.L. Bardach’s Archive
What do Fidel Castro, Sid Vicious, JonBenet Ramsey, Larry Rivers, William Burroughs and Benazir Bhutto have in common? They are all subjects of award-winning American journalist Ann Louise Bardach (known to friends and her former students at UCSB as simply Annie). In 2018, the UCSB Library Department of Special Research Collections acquired Bardach’s research files, documenting her career in journalism, as well as four books she authored or edited between 1979 and 2018.
A. L. Bardach featured in HBO documentary 537 Votes…
… which chronicles the political machinations that led to the unprecedented, contested outcome of the 2000 presidential election, including the chaotic voter recount in Florida that ended with George W. Bush winning by a razor-thin margin.
“Beg, borrow, or steal a copy of Carpinteria journalist A.L. Bardach’s new piece exposing “Lifestyles of the Rich and the Parched” in poor Montecito.”
— Santa Barbara Independent
“Ann Louise Bardach has spent fifteen years in relentless pursuit of the island nation, its dictator, its exiles, and their secrets…she is widely considered the go-to journalist on all things Cuban and Miami.”
“Bardach, a journalist, skillfully takes the reader back and forth between Havana and Miami, exposing the intricate webs of intrigue, spying, and violence that characterize Cuban politics on both sides of the Florida Strait.”