Saul Landau succumbs to cancer
Saul Landau was a special man. His endless energy and good humor, as well as his curiosity for things that he felt might make the world better, are things that his friends at Progreso Weekly will always remember.
Landau passed away Monday, Sept. 9, 2013, surrounded by family. He had been battling bladder cancer for the past two years.
“I will never forget Saul,” said Progreso Weekly editor Alvaro Fernandez. “He was a friend and someone I admired,” he added.
Among his many accomplishments, Landau was an internationally-known scholar, author, commentator and filmmaker. Landau’s most widely praised achievements are the over 40 films he produced on social, political and historical issues, and worldwide human rights, for which he won the Letelier-Moffitt Human Rights Award, the George Polk Award for Investigative Reporting, and the First Amendment Award, as well as an Emmy for “Paul Jacobs and the Nuclear Gang.”
In 2008, the Chilean government presented him with the Bernardo O’Higgins Award for his human rights work. Landau wrote 14 books during his lifetime including a book of poems, “My Dad Was Not Hamlet.” He received an Edgar Allen Poe Award for Assassination on Embassy Row, a report on the 1976 murders of Chilean Ambassador Orlando Letelier and his colleague, Ronni Moffitt.
His friend Gore Vidal once said, “Saul Landau is a man I love to steal ideas from.”
“We will miss him,” said Fernandez. “You don’t replace a man like Saul, all you hope for is to emulate his good and hard work.
Landau loved Cuba and its people. During his last years of life he worked tirelessly on behalf of the Cuban Five.
Saul Landau often expressed his frustration over U.S.-Cuba relations by the use of humor. At a public meeting where the issue was being discussed he would stand up and comment that “these things have to be given time to work out,” adding… “It’s only been fifty-some years…”
May you rest in peace, Saul.
*****
To read The Washington Post obituary with greater details of Saul Landau’s life, click here.
