English Translations of Cubans Writing From the Island
Hugo Chavez’s announcement that Cuban doctors had found and removed a cancerous tumor, coming after weeks of speculation about the Venezuelan president’s absence from public life, touches a particular chord for Cubans. For decades, the health of the Cuban president was information cloaked in secrecy. It was the least transparent topic in our national life, … Continue reading “Hugo Chavez’s Secret / Yoani Sánchez”
I’m so accustomed to the lack of information in our media that when I hear a story, not just of current national or international importance — as one can’t ask for so much — but of something as simple and useful as the repairs that occasion power outages, or about water shortages in certain areas … Continue reading “Gimme Light / Claudia Cadelo”
For several days, millions of people tried to decipher what happened in the hospital room where Hugo Chavez is resting. Because beyond the resilience of an individual, in that room is defined a part of the road map of this Island and an entire regional project involving several nations. This issue transcends the gravity of … Continue reading “Under the Sign of Cancer / Yoani Sánchez”
MY POST FOR 2025… Orlando Luis Pardo Lazo The future is so distant. Such a lie that we are going to live it. Such a panic. Such a coward. That. It’s better to inhabit it a bit in writing just now, when no one can see or hear us at the level of the Cuban … Continue reading “#TWITTHELP / Orlando Luis Pardo Lazo”
Ciro Diaz, 33, guitar player for the group Porno for Ricardo and musical producer, had all the ingredients to be a jet setter of the Revolution. He was born and raised in the heart of a family who listened to Fidel Castro’s long speeches and went to the Revolutionary celebrations cyclically generated by the olive … Continue reading “Ciro Diaz, Guitar Player for Porno Para Ricardo / Iván García”
Recently a fellow Cuban living abroad and I exchanged views on the advisability of hunger strikes as a way to confront the dictatorship. The subject, of course, was motivated by the strike initiated by Jorge Luis Artiles (Bebo) last May 9, in the city of Santa Clara, and that was assumed on Friday, June 3, … Continue reading “Of Strikes and Causes: Reflections on a Conflict / Miriam Celaya”
I know when it was because it was after that May Sunday I’d watched, from home, the TV broadcast of the Mother’s Day celebration where Ramoncito Veloz (the son) sang in front of the cameras wearing his Conrado Benítez Brigade uniform. I know when it was because it was before my fourteenth birthday, which I … Continue reading “A Particular Anniversary / Reinaldo Escobar”
In the struggle for land ownership and against eviction in Cuba, many farmers and farm workers lost their lives. Among them is Niceto Perez, who was killed May 17, 1946. In tribute to him and the rest of the martyrs of the field that day, the Law of Agrarian Reform was promulgated in 1959 and … Continue reading “The Agrarian Problem / Dimas Castellanos”
Indubitably most of these testimonies will be about the spiritual liberation of many Cubans. I will join them, but I would like to take the opportunity of this brief space to also thank God for the physical liberation of an elevated number of prisoners that before the celebration of the last three campaigns, and mainly … Continue reading “THE TESTIMONY THAT WILL NOT BE PUBLISHED / Mario Barosso”
In these April days while the communists of the government party met for four days in the Palace of Conventions, to the west of Havana, newspaper vendors had a party. Bartolo, a nearly blind old man, doubled sales of Granma that he offers every morning in the dirty doorways of the Calzada 10 de Octubre. … Continue reading “Cuban Newspaper Vendors Party / Iván García”
One morning in 1958, in intricate landscapes of the Sierra Maestra, after a heavy bombardment by dictator Fulgencio Batista’s air force on defenseless villages, the guerrilla leader Fidel Castro wrote a note to his secretary and friend Celia Sánchez. He vowed to her that after the air raid and verification that the bombs used were … Continue reading “The United States, the Intimate Enemy of Fidel Castro / Iván García”
For Sandra, a teenager who is currently in the 8th grade, January 1st of 1959 is the independence and birth date of Cuba as a republic. And believe me, the girl is not ignorant. She has excellent grades and enjoys good literature and cinema. But no history professor mentioned to her that it was actually … Continue reading “Cuba, an Ignored Republic / Iván García”
“We have never lied to the people. The unity of our people is not based on the worship of an individual or of the cult of personality of a certain individual. It is based on a solid and profound political conscience. The relationships of the direction of our Revolution and the people are based on … Continue reading “The Lie of Lies / Luis Felipe Rojas”
“Year of our Lord Jesus Christ” Mr. Freddy Perez Cabrera Granma Newspaper Editor and Administrator General Suarez and Territorial Plaza of the Revolution, Havana Email: correo@granma.cip.cu Freddy: Greetings to you. Moved by the painful events which led to death of my fellow citizen, Juan Wilfredo Soto Garcia, during the early morning hours of Sunday May … Continue reading “Cuba Manipulates the Truth / Ricardo Medina”
Cuban civil society is looking forward to what will happen in July when the network structure of the island is connected to to the fiber optic cable that came in early February to Cuba from Venezuela. The event, which will multiply by 3,000 the speed of data transmission, also helped the government admit its fear … Continue reading “The Internet is a Question Mark in Cuba / Laritza Diversent”
