English Translations of Cubans Writing From the Island
Joel, a fifty-five-year-old engineer, remembers the summer of 1994 when, after finishing his day job, he came home to roast two or three pounds of peanuts. After packaging them in paper cones fashioned from the pages of school textbooks, he went out to sell them on the street and make a little extra money. As … Continue reading “Is This the Second Phase of Cuba’s Special Period? / Iván García”
14ymedio, Manuel Cuesta Morua, Havana, 8 May 2016 — The only certainty in Cuba in political terms is that the government accumulates a lot of power but lacks leadership. The kind of leadership required when a country faces an economic challenge, or a cultural, sociological, information, knowledge and generational one, plus the obvious dangers of any new … Continue reading “57 Years Later: Towards a New Contract for Cuba (Pt. 2) / 14ymedio, Manuel Cuesta Morua”
Somos +, Frank Rojas, 26 January 2016 — My history is like that of most Cubans born during the Revolutionary period. My generation grew up with our lives administered by others, carrying ration cards and bearing witness to those great moments that marked the lives of millions of us. The Mariel Boatlift, the ridiculous and extreme … Continue reading “My History / Somos+, Frank Rojas”
José Manuel Presol, 21 October 2015 — Yesterday we were thrilled to hear the news. Several media outlets have been in touch with the Cuban citizen, Danilo Maldonado Machado, and he himself confirmed it: He’s free and there are no charges! Right now Danilo isn’t just any Cuban citizen. He’s known artistically as “El Sexto” (The … Continue reading “El Sexto is Free! / Somos+”
Rosa Maria Rodriguez, 5 August 2015 — On August 5, 1994, the Havana shoreline filled with a human tidal wave that took the capital by surprise and overflowed into international news. The national press, as always, had to wait for the approval of the censor before reporting on the event. Nothing like this had happened … Continue reading “Dreaming in Color / Rosa Maria Rodriguez”
1898: the United States declares war on Spain after accusing it of the sinking of the battleship “Maine” in Havana harbor. The United States wins and Spain has to give up Cuba. 1901: On June 12, the United States imposes the Platt Amendment which will be incorporated into the first Constitution of Cuba and limits the sovereignty … Continue reading “A Century Of Tumultuous Relations / 14ymedio”
14ymedio, Yoani Sanchez, 7 November 2014 – Of all the faces that circulate on the illegal information networks, there is a very serene and well-known one that has been with us for decades. This well-spoken man who never seems to get upset has received the worst insults in the official media and the stealthy applause … Continue reading ““We journalists are the witnesses to history” / 14ymedio, Yoani Sanchez”
1994 was an amazing year. The fall of the Berlin Wall and the disappearance of the USSR had been the trigger for the beginning in Cuba of the “Special Period in Times of Peace,” an economic crisis which lasted for 25 years. We returned to a subsistence economy. The factories shut down as they had … Continue reading “The Day the People of Havana Protested in the Streets / Ivan Garcia”
1994 began with uncertainty and ended in despair. A number of astrologers were in agreement: there was reason to believe something unusual would happen later that year. This was partly due, they said, to increased solar activity. In early August large solar flares occurred. Aside from the considered opinion of those who can see everything … Continue reading “August 1994: Safeguarding the Physical Well-Being of the ”Leaders of the Revolution” / Juan Juan Almeida”
1994 was an amazing year. The fall of the Berlin Wall and the disappearance of the USSR had been the trigger for the beginning in Cuba of the “Special Period in Times of Peace,” an economic crisis which lasted for 25 years. We returned to a subsistence economy. The factories shut down as they had … Continue reading “The Day the People of Havana Protested in the Streets / Ivan Garcia”
The article that I published in Issue 19 of the journal Voices “Every frustration is the daughter of an excess of expectations,” a friend repeated to me when the forecasts of beautiful tints that I invent every now and then fell short. The last decades of my life — like that of so many Cubans … Continue reading “Chimeras, Transitions and Stages / Yoani Sanchez”
Havana, Cuba, October 2013, www.cubanet.org – Humberto Real Suarez is another of the men who disembarked on the night of 15 October 1994 on the coasts of Caibarien, along with Armado Sosa Fortuny. Today he is serving a sentence of 30 years imprisonment in “Kilo 8” maximum security prison in Camagüey. The group of seven men, … Continue reading “Humberto Real Suarez: 16 Years Old, Condemned to Death / Lilianne Ruiz”
While in Sao Paulo and other cities in Brazil the outraged people flooded the streets to protest the increase in transportation prices, rampant corruption and the millions in public expenditures for the World Cup and the Olympic Games, in Cuba the men garbed in olive-green govern at their pleasure, supported by a hard autocratic staff … Continue reading “The Kindness of the Cuban Aristocracy? / Ivan Garcia”
Beto was one of those who handed out beatings in August of 1994. With his helmet, his mortar-splattered pants and an iron bar in his hand, he lashed out at some of the protestors during the Maleconazo. At that time he was working on a construction team and felt like part of an elite. He … Continue reading “Creole Block / Yoani Sanchez”
HAVANA, Cuba, August, www.cubanet.org — Perhaps at the moment the reader reads this, it will have been twenty years since the beginning of the Special Period, the major event to befall Cuban history in the last century. It began in August of 1993 when the former secretary of the Council of Ministers, Carlos Lage, announced … Continue reading “The Ground Soy Generation Remembers / Frank Correa”
