English Translations of Cubans Writing From the Island
Citizen Demand for Another Cuba As Cubans, legitimate children of this land and an essential part of our nation, we feel a deep sorrow at the prolonged crisis that we are experiencing and the demonstrated inability of the current government to make fundamental changes. This obliges us, from civil society, to seek and demand our … Continue reading “Citizen Demand for Another Cuba – 536 Signatures and Counting”
Introduction to Yoani Sánchez’s book Havana Real, published in 2011. By Mary Jo Porter In 2004, Yoani Sánchez returned to Cuba two years after emigrating to Switzerland, where she and her family had planned to start a new life in a free and democratic country. Explaining a condition of her return, she said: I promised … Continue reading “The Making, and Translating, of Generation Y / Translating Cuba”
From June 21 to 23 the CLICK Festival was celebrated in Havana, organized by the Blogger Academy, led by Yoani Sánchez, Estado de Sats, headed by Antonio Rodiles, and Spain Blog Even (EBE). The Click Festival — consisting of panels, workshops, discussions, film showings and exchanges — was an important step in the interrelationship of … Continue reading “CLICK Festival in Havana / Dimas Castellano”
Just being in Cuba and within this struggle for the right to exist, makes you realize how difficult it is to organize a participate and plural event such as the recent CLICK Festival. Here is it virtually impossible to do anything without the support of the State institutions; now imagine doing it with the entire … Continue reading “¡Be strong and courageous and connect us at once! / Eliécer Ávila”
Sprinkled with enthusiasm and soaked in technology, from early this morning, despite the inclement weather, bloggers, alternative journalists, twitterers, as well as the usual comrades from State Security who don’t come inside but who watch over us from the sidewalk in front and both corners, we arrived at the familiar site of Estado de Sats. … Continue reading “The Sweet Blue Bird of Immediacy / Rebeca Monzo”
“I do not agree with giving mercenaries the same rights as intellectuals,” claimed the writer Miguel Barnet, president of the Union of Writers and Artists of Cuba (UNEAC) and member of the Communist Party Central Committee, at the 30th Conference of the Latin American Studies Association (LASA) held in San Francisco, California, this May. Barnet’s … Continue reading “Who is the Mercenary? / Oscar Espinosa Chepe”
Citizen Demand for Another Cuba As Cubans, legitimate children of this land and an essential part of our nation, we feel a deep sorrow at the prolonged crisis that we are experiencing and the demonstrated inability of the current government to make fundamental changes. This obliges us, from civil society, to seek and demand our … Continue reading “For Another Cuba – Citizen Demand for Another Cuba”
From civil society, the Estado de SATS project, is an attempt to create a space for citizen participation. Its director, Antonio G. Rodiles, responds to questions from the readers of DIARIO DE CUBA. Omar Laffita: First, greetings. I have seen your programs and I want to say that the interview with El Sexto has been one … Continue reading “We are an active part of the transition, not just observers / Antonio Rodiles, Estado de SATS”
A journalist from abroad asked me about the content and the implementation of something known in Law as Right of Appeal, which in Cuba turns out to be problematic. In our case, the first problem is that our multi-awarded compatriot Yoani Sanchez brought this action against the Minister of Interior, General Abelardo Colome Ibarra. The … Continue reading “When the Law is Respected / Wilfredo Vallin Almeida”
MARIELA AND ANTONIO CASTRO, DESCENDANTS OF THE REGIME I don’t imagine Cubans putting up with another fifty years of “castrismo”. I say this because lately one can observe an induced and growing role by two offshoots of the Castro-Ruz family that don’t suggest they will distance themselves much from the actors of the past. Incidentally, … Continue reading “Two Offspring of the Regime / León Padrón Azcuy”
Public spaces In a recent column I published an anecdote with which I’m sure you agree: our meeting in 2004, by chance, on the corner of Palacio de los Matrimonios in Vedado, after months without seeing each other, in which, very concerned about the political and cultural pressures you were under, you told me, “You’re … Continue reading “Interview of Cuban writer Ángel Santiesteban Prats by Amir Valle – Part 4 of 4”
Recently various events have stolen our time of creation. On the fifth anniversary of the blog Generation Y, a pioneer space that shouts to the world about the rights of Cubans, the gift from the government has been the imprisonment of the attorney Wilfredo Vallín Almeida, president of the Cuban Law Association (AJC). It was … Continue reading “Cuba, Crying Out Against the Fear / Angel Santiesteban”
By Alexis Jardines José Daniel Ferrer suffers in the dungeons of State Security in Santiago de Cuba, subjected to psychological pressures and macabre practices (like night attacks from swarms of mosquitoes) that seek to break his health. What has Raul Castro gained by the detention and harassment of the leader of the Patriotic Union of … Continue reading “The Great Bubble and the Complicit Silence / Estado de SATS, Alexis Jardines”
Translator’s note: This article by Regina is from the blog of Ernesto Hernandez Busto,, Penultimos Dias. It is a response to a commentary by Ernesto, “The Gap,” which appears below in translation. The gap exists; but it also existed in the GDR the day before the wall fell, and in Romania, just as they started … Continue reading “Opening the Gap / Regina Coyula”
What can I say if I forget everything. Nothing, not even that and not the word nothing. So I carry a load of recordings of the past, what was learned. As if every atom in me, unknowingly or unwittingly, has a file in the autopilot. Everything I see or I suffer first hand I project … Continue reading “If I Forget Everything… / El Sexto – Danilo Maldonado Machado”
