Marinello was born to a Spanish father and Cuban mother. He went to Spain as a child and studied in Villafranca del Panadés (Catalonia), his father's homeland, until he was sixteen, when the family returned to Cuba. He first studied in the city of Santa Clara. Later, he completed his higher studies at the University of Havana. He graduated with a Doctorate in Civil Law, a Doctorate in Public Law, and in Philosophy and Letters. Later, he returned to Spain with a scholarship to get a doctorate at the Central University of Madrid, in Spain. A close friend of the prominent Cuban intellectual Dr.
Jorge Mañach during their youth, in later years they irremediably distanced themselves due to political issues. This happened because, during the 1930s, Marinello was linked to the
Communist Party of Cuba and later joined it, while Mañach, of aristocratic origin, was always anti-communist. Together with
Rubén Martínez Villena, he founded the magazine
Venezuela Libre, at the same time that he began intense political activity, clearly anti-imperialist, which led him into exile on several occasions. He also participated in the founding of the Instituto Hispano Cubano de Cultura (1926) and the
Revista de Avance (1927), the latter year in which he published Liberación, his best book of poems. Exiled in Mexico, Juan Marinello worked as a university professor in addition to collaborating in various publications politically committed to the left. He returned to the island after the fall of the dictatorship of
Gerardo Machado, although he was soon removed from his chair again for appearing as director of the proletarian newspaper
La Word, founded by the Communist Party of Cuba. Back in Mexico, in 1936 and 1937, he wrote controversial articles about the
Spanish Civil War. Together with
Nicolás Guillén, Marinello traveled to Spain in 1937 during the Civil War to attend the Congress of Writers for the Defense of Culture in Madrid and Valencia. He returned to Cuba and became a prominent leader of the
Popular Socialist Party. The party supported the first government of
Fulgencio Batista during the
Second World War and Marinello became a member of Batista's cabinet. After the banning of the PSP, Marinello was arrested on several occasions under the dictatorship of
Fulgencio Batista. After the victory of the
Cuban Revolution led by Fidel Castro and Che Guevara he was appointed rector of the University of Havana in 1962, and from there he promoted the University Reform policy. == Works ==