‘Poisoned Utopia’ describes the mechanisms of ideological export and political control that have characterized Havana in recent decades.
14ymedio, Xavier Carbonell, Salamanca, 14 September 2025
1. Paneles solares [Solar panels]. According to Padura, his latest novel begins when the protagonist steps in cat droppings. Space: “a very fucked-up country for everyone.” Time: the present and whatever memory can offer. It’s called Morir en la arena (To Die in the Sand) (Tusquets) and has just gone on sale in Spain, which means it will be a few weeks before it arrives as contraband in Cuba.
Engrossed in supervising the installation of solar panels, the price of which El País, to add a local flavor, reveals—$4,000—Padura is trying to promote the book from his neighborhood, Mantilla. It’s the umpteenth story the Cuban has written, he asserts, “based on real events” and, even more so, family events. He also insists that it’s an apologia for his generation.
Rodolfo is an Angolan veteran. Each of Padura’s novels features a soldier who went to Africa and lived to tell the tale. His brother is about to be released from prison—which is like returning to Africa, because the prison is in Cuba—where he served time for killing his father, and he has nowhere else to return to. Their daughters are exiles, and Rodolfo is in love with his sister-in-law, “an old love from his youth.” That should be enough to achieve the “dramatic story, the masterful novel” promised by Tusquets on the back cover.
The best-selling Cuban novelist suffers, though always vicariously. Life is elsewhere, not in the socialist Matrix, and he’s the first to admit it.
“In Cuba, we have no choice but to incorporate misery into life and remain silent,” Padura explains to the El País journalist under his solar-paneled rooftop. The best-selling Cuban novelist suffers, though always vicariously. Life is elsewhere, not in the socialist Matrix, and he is the first to admit it: “I finish the book, press a key, and in two seconds it’s in Barcelona.”
2. Dos exiliados [Two Exiles]. The Yucca Fool and Other Old Stories (Verbum) is the testimony of a double exile, Miguel Sales, who escaped not only from a country but from an entire era, the one before 1959. According to journalist William Navarrete, these stories conclude “the taste of other times” in the mouths of their protagonists. These four pieces address, among other topics, “the journey of the Archangel Raphael to America, the Castro utopia, the presence of the Chinese on the island, and the Fitzgerald mansion.”
With a prologue by Iván de la Nuez, American Playgrounds (Rialta) by Juan-Sí González is the latest installment in the Fluxus series, coordinated by Carlos A. Aguilera. Born in Santiago de Cuba in 1959, González offers an exile’s view of the United States. His collection of photographs of the North American country is, according to the publisher, an “interpellation of the present” that captures a kind of open-air museum.
3. Quijote remediano. Several books of poetry were published in August. Among them, “Del polvo no he venir” [The dust hasn’t come] stands out, which Betania publishing house offers free to readers. Its author, Omar Rodríguez García, who died in 2009, was born in Remedios and remained outside the institutions. He left behind several unpublished books and a series of semi-legendary anecdotes.
4. El desierto de la revolución. [The Desert of the Revolution]. Utopia Poisoned (4Métrica) brings together some of the most lucid voices on the Cuban issue to reflect on the regime’s alliances with many complicit states. The book examines the mechanisms of ideological export and political control that have characterized Havana in recent decades. Its conclusion, endorsed by authors such as Hilda Landrove and Eloy Viera: “The emancipatory paradigms of the 21st century need to overcome the desert of the ‘Cuban Revolution.'”
“Poisoned Utopia” brings together some of the most insightful voices on the Cuban issue to reflect on the regime’s alliances with many complicit states.
5. Un recordador [A Reminder]. Luis Felipe Rojas aspires for El ruido de los libros [The Noise of Books], recently published in Miami (Media Mix), to become his personal time machine. Its theme—”how the diverse voices of the people shaped the reader, the writer that this book shows you today”—recalls Fernando Savater’s Recovered Childhood: “The books and the voices of the people make a fuss so that the words spin in a cyclonic wind toward me and so that I don’t miss the stories that were invented to be heard.”
6. Posdata [P.S.]. Those who enjoyed Princesa Miami, the “political and population atlas” by Legna Rodríguez Iglesias (Incubadora, 2024 Franz Kafka Essay/Testimony Prize winner), can listen to the soundtrack of the book prepared by Walfrido Dorta here. It’s a minefield: from Ozuna to The Beatles, from Shakira to Roxette, and vice versa. Consider yourself warned.
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