English Translations of Cubans Writing From the Island
In this moment as I write, sleeping very close to me is my niece Elizabeth. I must be aware of her angelic dream: she is only nine days old. The magical aura of helplessness surrounding her cradle, her woman-in-miniature expression, inspires a protective tenderness that is, I believe, universal. But I can’t stop thinking of … Continue reading “The Words of a Newcomer / Ernesto Morales Licea”
In the Havana of the ’80s, many of us young people were living without a future. Between guitar chords and conversations, at the foot of the bust of Jose Marti, at the entrance to the La Vibora Institute, we gathered at night to drink alcohol diluted with water, which cost 5 pesos a bottle from … Continue reading “Chronicle for Mario / Iván García”
A suspicious incident has provided me with writing material this time. As a sample of a rare will for controversy and democratic confrontation, the site Kaos en la Red, which promotes itself as the champion of intellectual reflection, has just censured a post originally published on this blog, which some reader decided to post on … Continue reading “My Friend The Enemy / Ernesto Morales Licea”
Nothing will be solved with the hard discourse. There will be no solution because General Raul Castro launches the call to slaughter against the dissidence. Neither will there be a way out of the deep crisis that Cuba inhabits, with the usual television Roundtables, where four rigid guys share their uniform opinions. Cuba needs a dialogue, … Continue reading “Waiting for a Dialogue….and an Inquest”
It was Fidel Castro who, in one of his his typical vitriolic outbursts, during a speech on January 2, 1961 (in what was then the Civic Plaza, today Revolution Plaza), applied the epithet “worms” to those Cubans who dared to criticize his olive green revolution or who decided to leave their homeland. That day he … Continue reading “Good Worms and Bad Worms”
Damn. What do I do now? I had planned an interview with a lady from the Marianao neighborhood who does community service with needy children. Because of reasons beyond my control I had to postpone it. It’s 8:00 in the morning of an unusual and cold month of January in 2010. I look at the … Continue reading “Independent Journalists’ Avatars”
14ymedio, Rosa Pascual, Madrid, 2 February 2021 — The perseverance with which the Cuban government seeks the Nobel Peace Prize for the Henry Reeve Brigade in the context of the pandemic is now beginning a new phase. After the nomination period closed on Monday, the official press reported the addition of singer-songwriter Silvio Rodríguez to … Continue reading “Havana’s Obsession With the Nobel Peace Prize in Response to Allegations of Slavery”
14ymedio, Carlos A. Montaner, Miami, November 3, 2019 — Diario de Cuba counted 22 diction errors in the 17-minute speech of Miguel Díaz-Canel, president of Cuba, to the “Non-Aligned.” It’s true: he speaks “with tobacco in the mouth,” although he doesn’t smoke cigars, unlike certain Villa Clara natives, and he reverses the R and the L, … Continue reading “Go To Bed, Or The Neoliberal Will Come To Eat You”
14ymedio, Carlos A. Montaner, Miami, July 14, 2019 — Mexico is trembling. It occurs every once in a while. AMLO is the acronym for Andrés Manuel López Obrador, its president. The word that best describes all that is happening there is “uncertainty.” No one knows what could happen. When societies are in this situation, generally … Continue reading “AMLO and Uncertainty”
Not even an enormous Persian magic carpet would be big enough to bring to the Havana Book Fair, running from February 9th to 19th at La Cabaña, a sample of the extensive work of fiction, poetry, essays and historiography of exiled Cuban writers and those excluded from within the island for reasons other than literary. … Continue reading “Absent from the Book Fair / Miguel Iturria Savón”
As an unexpected Christmas present, Doors to the Imagination: New Cuban Literature arrived in Havana last week. The volume compiles the prize winners and honorable mentions from the Voices of Change writing contest, sponsored in mid-2008 by the Independent Libraries of Cuba Project. Although the formal presentation has not yet been made,a dozen copies circulated … Continue reading “Prize Winning Doors / Miguel Iturría Savón”
On February 10 the Havana International Book Fair began in the La Cabaña fortress, extended to March 6 in the capital’s bookshops and in the provincial centers of books and literature, which sold more than 2,000 titles of publishers from Cuba and abroad, among them the Bicentennial Alba collection with a score of works from … Continue reading “Of Absences and Other Troubles / Miguel Iturria Savon”
