English Translations of Cubans Writing From the Island
EUROPA PRESS (via 14ymedio), Barcelona, 6 February 2023 — Cuban crime novel writer Leonardo Padura, creator of the policeman Mario Conde series, has won the Pepe Carvalho 2023 Prize in recognition of his career. The prize is awarded within the framework of the BCNegra festival. It was announced by the writer and winner of the award … Continue reading “Cuban Leonardo Padura Wins the Pepe Carvalho Prize for Crime Novels”
EFE (via 14ymedio), Las Palmas de Gran Canaria (Spain), 14 July 2022 — On Tuesday, the Cuban writer Leonardo Padura, literary father of the detective Mario Conde and winner of 2021’s Princess of Asturias Award for Letters, said that throughout his career he has never had the feeling of escaping from censorship, but rather rather … Continue reading “Leonardo Padura: ‘I Don’t Escape Censorship, I Look for it’”
EFE (via 14ymedio), Eloy Viera, Puerto de la Cruz (Tenerife) November 1st, 2019 — Three decades after he created detective Mario Conde, his most famous character, the author Leonardo Padura thinks that today’s Cuba “is different” from that of the 1990s, among other things, because the Cuba of the past “was much more afraid than … Continue reading “Leonardo Padura: There Was More Fear In The Cuba Of The Nineties Than Now”
14ymedio, Havana, 26 December 2015 — The creator of Detective Mario Conde enjoyed an extravagant 2015. In July he was awarded the Princess of Asturias Prize for Literature in recognition of his career as a novelist and journalist. During the ceremony, the writer acknowledged his “Three homelands”: Cuba, language and work. Born in 1955 in Mantilla, … Continue reading “Cuban Faces of 2015: Leonardo Padura, Writer / 14ymedio”
The Mantilla neighborhood exhibits a rare blend of a Havana suburb with a rural village. Its park, its church, its streets that foreign tourists rarely see, and even its famous writer. This last is Leonardo Padura, born in Havana in 1955, a journalist and author of numerous novels. Despite his international recognition and his possession … Continue reading “Leonardo Padura: The Man Who Loved Books / Yoani Sanchez #Cuba”
Intro Many years ago – I’m talking about the ’70s – I worked for the MININT (Ministry of the Interior), but my military unit’s official cover was MINFAR (Ministry of the Revolutionary Armed Forces), and therefore to all outward appearances I worked in the military. A minibus would pick me up in the morning and drop me off in the … Continue reading “The Novel That Leonardo Padura Wrote for Me / Regina Coyula”
In his last novel, The Man Who Loved Dogs, the Cuban writer and journalist Leonardo Padura Fuentes tells the story of Ramón Mercader, the man who, with a pickaxe on August 20, 1940, fatally struck the head of Leon Trotski, Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin’s fiercest opponent, and a discreet and cultivated man with a passion … Continue reading “Trotski’s assassin, by Leonardo Padura”
EFE (via 14ymedio), Lorena Cantó, Havana, August 2, 2021 — The Cuban writer Leonardo Padura, winner of the 2015 Princess of Asturias Prize for Literature, considers his novels “some of the most radical documents that could have been written” about a Cuba today in turmoil, whose problems “must be resolved among Cubans.” “I believe that … Continue reading “Padura: ‘Cuba’s Problems Must be Resolved Among Cubans’”
EFE (14ymedio), February 2016 — Cuban writer Leonardo Padura said today that he views positively the upcoming visit of U.S. president Barack Obama to Cuba, and he believes it marks “a different moment” in the relations between both countries, which have always been “very traumatic.” “We are living at a unique moment: Obama is coming, the … Continue reading “Padura Says Obama’s Visit Marks A Different Moment In Cuba-US Relations / EFE, 14ymedio”
Angel Santiesteban, 18 November 2015 — On October 31, in the Museo Napoleónico de La Habana, the book, “The Faces of Padura: Work and Life of a Writer, ” a compilation of texts about Leonardo Padura, was presented. Padura was recently awarded the Princesa de Asturias de las Letras Prize. At the event, Padura shared the … Continue reading “Padura and the Face of Cultural Context / Angel Santiesteban”
From Havana, Cuba, where he lives and is subjected to systematic police and legal abuse by the island’s military regime, because of his determination to be a free writer, especially in his blog “The Children Nobody Wanted,” Angel Santiesteban answered, bravely it must be said, the following interview questions from Armando de Armas for Marti … Continue reading “Santiesteban, Padura, Milanes and the Repression of Intellectuals in Cuba / Angel Santiesteban”
14ymedio, Xavier Carbonell, Salamanca, 29 October 2023 — “When you see cartoons being burned, soak your constitution.” Enrique del Risco’s warning doesn’t stand up to scrutiny because of its lucidity, in the country of the hoax and the practical joke. It is sad that it arrives late, more than 65 years after – as Jorge … Continue reading “October Books: Del Risco and Totalitarian Culture, Jorge Luis Arcos, Zoe Valdes, Juan Manuel Cao”
14ymedio, Havana, 4 August 2023 — The Cuban Conflict Observatory (OCC) registered a total of 589 protests on the island in July. The figure, which represents an increase of 124% compared to the same month of the previous year, exceeded by 175 incidents than those counted in June of 2022. Except for the months of October … Continue reading “NGO Reports that July 2023 is the Month with the Second Most Protests in Cuba Since July 2021”
Xavier Carbonell, Salamanca, 15 May 2023 – On 20 June 2022, the Cuban Language Academy (ACuL) sent out a laconic message: the poet Roberto Méndez, who should have led the institution until 2026, gave up his post “for health reasons”. His successor would be the essayist Jorge Fornet, the then vice-director and one of the … Continue reading “The Cuban Regime Hijacked the Academy of Languages for Critcising Daniel Ortega”
EFE (via 14ymedio), Mexico, 20 May 2023 — The Mexican academic Andrés Ordóñez regretted this Saturday the radicalisms in the debates on the Cuban Revolution and considered that they are not something exclusive to the Island but a trend in today’s world. “We are living in times of polarization. That intolerance, that propensity to disqualify … Continue reading “Polarization in Cuba Is Part of a General Crisis, Says Academic Andres Ordonez”
