Cuba's ex-leader Fidel Castro has written a special prologue for the Chinese edition of 100 Hours With Fidel, one of the eight new editions scheduled for the work, Cuban official newspaper Granma said on Tuesday.

French-Spanish writer Ignacio Ramonet wrote the book after a series of interviews with Fidel between 2003 and 2005.

In the prologue, Fidel says "it fills me with satisfaction to think of the legendary Chinese people, with their culture of many millennia, having the ideas of this book within their reach."

The memoirs, written in question-and-answer style, give a definitive account of Castro's views on major events since he became Cuba's leader in 1959, such as the Cuban missile crisis and Cuba's military role in Africa.

The book already has two editions in Spain, three in Cuba, one each in France, Portugal, Brazil, Italy, Turkey, Britain, the United States and Denmark.

It will soon be published for the first time in German, Czech and Korean, and there will be a new paperback edition in Britain; reprints of its Hindi, Farsi and Singhalese editions; and a reprint of its English-language Cuban edition are also in the works.

Suffering from health problems, Castro officially handed over power to his younger brother Raul Castro last month.

(Xinhua News Agency March 12, 2008)