English Translations of Cubans Writing From the Island
Who could have told the patriarch Fidel Castro that in the autumn of his years he would find an ally to repeal the Cuban Adjustment Act, and not among his starched-brain little spokespeople in the leftist corners of the world, but among Miami’s ranks of the ultra-right-wing itself? If he had the strength for it, … Continue reading “Brain Adjustment Act / Ernesto Morales Licea”
Death is step and journey in the essence of life. Archbishop Pedro Meurice Estiu course, retired archbishop of Santiago de Cuba has ended his fruitful and suffering journey for the time he lived. Cuba has lost one of its greatest pastors of all time and has gained one of the holy intercessors who has known … Continue reading “Pedro Claro Meurice: Cuban, Pastor, and Faithful Friend / IntraMuros”
Human Damage in an Environment of Punishment Orlando Luis Pardo Lazo Talking with Henry Constantin, expelled for life from the country’s universities. The worst of a prolonged war, is not the hunger of the siege, nor the exhaustion, nor the despair, nor the dead left in the dust of no man’s land. The atrocious, the … Continue reading “Constantin Answers in Diario de Cuba / Orlando Luis Pardo Lazo”
For some time I’ve wanted to talk about the media series on the Cuban “agents”, a completely carnivalesque show where they invent records with long years of service, unfortunately I was damned surprised to recognize the two of them. I recognized him from being part of a fraternal organization to which I belonged for twenty-four … Continue reading “Collera and Capote, Second Rate Agents / Angel Santiesteban”
LET US NOT FORGET OLIVA IN HIS HOUR OF HORROR Orlando Luis Pardo Lazo I don’t know the Pinar del Rio painter Pedro Pablo Oliva. i don’t know anyone among the stateless dust of a people dispersed as are Cubans (maybe we don’t even go that far, and we are just an illusion of identity). … Continue reading “MINCULT OR MINCUT VERSUS PEDRO PABLO OLIVA / Orlando Luis Pardo Lazo”
EML: Mr. Lesnik, we’ve already talked about the Cuban opposition, where does your aversion to these political activists come from? Why can’t you, a man so markedly political, not accept the right of these people to belong to parties that oppose the only official Party? ML: It stems from, among other things, that for me … Continue reading “Among Dissidents (II. Final) / Ernesto Morales Licea”
I saw him before me, for the first time, in a television studio in Miami. He had been invited to debate an incident in which he had been a protagonist: A billboard, in an anti-Castro city par excellence, that for twenty-four hours spoke out on behalf of the five Cuban members of the “Wasp Network” … Continue reading “Among Dissidents: My Interview with Max Lesnik (I) / Ernesto Morales Licea”
A television program, in order to be classified as such, needs to be broadcast through a channel and aired on television. For now, we Cuban citizens disconnected from the State institutions lack the necessary resources to produce a program completely within the law. We have to content ourselves recording from an amateur cameraman or two, … Continue reading “Citizen Reasons / Reinaldo Escobar”
When a state decides to aim all its weapons at a citizen there is little he can do about it. Without access to the mass media, in a country with low Internet connectivity, with arbitrary laws against freedom of expression and with the impunity to defame, distort, lie and lay waste on national television to … Continue reading “Me and the Soap Opera / Claudia Cadelo”
By Dagoberto Valdés There can be no economic development without freedoms and human rights. As we gather statements from Cuban men and women who are trying to develop their private initiative through their own small businesses—those that have been included in the list of medieval trades that the Cuban government, in a false overture, has … Continue reading “Bureaucratic Obstacles and Obsolete Protectionism Regarding the Self-Employed / IntraMuros”
The evening was cool. Since the early hours we were preparing for what would happen that afternoon. We were to pick up the poet and Regina in order to go together to the Dutch ambassador’s residence, where there would be a reception to present the Prince Claus award officially to Yoani Sánchez. Upon arriving at … Continue reading “A Well-Deserved Award / Rebeca Monzo”
By Dagoberto Valdés Taking into account the absolute and meticulous control enforced by the state in Cuba since 1969 over economic, financial, commercial, and service activities, the Guidelines for the VI Congress are just a drop of water in the desert. Those who know what centralized economy means are well aware that said guidelines are … Continue reading “Guidelines for the VI Congress of the Party: Update Socialism or Renovate Societal Structures? / Intramuros”
Claudia Cadelo is still waiting for a response from the Provincial Prosecutor to her complaint about the cultural apartheid at the last Young Filmmakers Exhibition. Agent Rodney never showed his face to confirm or deny the sad events of November 2009. And plainclothes police surround the home of Luis Felipe Rojas, without any court order … Continue reading “Cultural Dysgrphia / Yoani Sánchez”
CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD VOCES 3: IN SPANISH Dagoberto Valdés (1) Art and craft of making independent magazines Mirta Suquet (3) Power and the grotesque Ena Lucia Portela (9) The chills and laughter Miriam Celaya (11) Possible exit scenarios Reinaldo Escobar (15) The more uncertain assumptions Francis Sanchez (16) Dream journal (I) Orlando Luis Pardo … Continue reading “INDEX OF VOICES 3 (October 2010) [And Download] / Orlando Luis Pardo Lazo”
Cuba dawned today in the monotony typical of these systems. But a text message broke into my room at 5 am: Farinas won the Sakharov Prize. The morning dawned differently for me and for many other Cubans who began to send from heart to heart — that is from cellphone to cellphone — the good … Continue reading “Fariñas and Sakharov: The Totalitarians Cannot Be Reformed / IntraMuros”