Manuel C. Díaz was born in Havana, Cuba, in 1942. In 1966 he was imprisoned for trying to leave the country in a boat. Along with four thousand other Cuban political prisoners, he was pardoned in 1979. Since that date, he has resided in the city of Miami. He has written several books: El año del ras de mar (1993), a short novel in which he narrated part of the horror that the Cuban people have lived through. A paradise under the stars (1996), a collection of short stories. The novels Subasta de sueños (2001) and La virgen del malecón (2013). And From Cádiz to Normandía (2016), a compilation of travel chronicles.

He is a founding member of the PEN Club of Exiled Cuban Writers. He currently writes opinion pieces and book reviews for El Nuevo Herald. His works have appeared in different anthologies and literary magazines.

His new book, Escritores cubanos exiliados: Sesenta reseñas literarias, is a compendium of those he wrote for El Nuevo Herald for more than twenty years. But it is also a tribute to the exiled Cuban writers, many of whom died without ever being able to return to their homeland, such as Lydia Cabrera Enrique Labrador Ruiz, Gastón Baquero, José Sánchez-Boudy, Eugenio Florit, Ana Rosa Núñez, Reinaldo Arenas, Roberto Valero, Heberto Padilla, José Lorenzo Fuentes, Guillermo Cabrera Infante, Armando Álvarez Bravo, Reinaldo Bragado, José Ignacio Rasco, Elio Alba Bufill, Ramón Barquín, Enrique Ros, José Miguel González-Llorente and many others.