English Translations of Cubans Writing From the Island
History is a succession of events, first experienced, and then interpreted by men, a peculiarity that impregnates them with a certain subjective component. The difference between those two moments — the experience and the interpretation — is one in which objective events happening at a concrete moment can suffer various explications over time, depending on … Continue reading “The Pact of Zanjon’ A Political Event / Dimas Castellano”
The year 2012 has arrived, and presents Cubans with more dilemmas about the future than the intricacies of the Mayan predictions. Our people greet the new year in a kind of stupor from which they want to wake up, but can’t, living a dizzying unreality in which there are no clear boundaries between the certain … Continue reading “Long Live the Revolution! / Jeovany J. Vega”
The issue of Gitmo, as the Detention Center created ten years ago by the U.S. Naval Base in Guantanamo, Cuba is known, is controversial, both at home and elsewhere. Its defenders and detractors have faced off in a war of words for quite some time. For some, the detainees there are dangerous terrorists and murderers … Continue reading “Gitmo’s Birthday / Fernando Dámaso”
JJ: There are men who unwittingly become part of history. That is the case with General Tabernilla. Where were you born? ST: I was born in beautiful Guanabacoa, son. I lived there a year and a half, then we moved to La Cabaña where my father belonged. I kept living in Guanabacoa, I never left. … Continue reading “Silito Tabernilla, A General / Juan Juan Almeida”
www.thestarklife.com/2011/11/03/el-sexto-cubas-graf-king/ This article can be read at the original site – STARK: A Digital Culture Magazine – here — along with the accompanying images. The original article is in English. EL SEXTO: Cuba’s Next Graf King Danilo Maldonado may be the new face of revolution in Cuba, but he’s no politician. As El Sexto, he’s … Continue reading “El Sexto in The Stark Life / Orlando Luis Pardo Lazo”
The pronouncement of the Cuban Workers Center (CTC), regarding the measures taken by the Government to deflate workforces and to bring about greater self-employment, published in the Journal of Communist Party on September 13, 2010, is a good reason to discuss the dependence of the Cuban labor union movement with respect to the State. According … Continue reading “Independent Unions Versus Updating the Model / Dimas Castellano”
I was surprised when I compared myself to Teresa, one of the characters from Milan Kundera’s book ‘La Insoportable Levedad del Ser’ (The Unbearable Lightness of Being). In one of the scenes in the book Teresa takes some photos of the tanks in the Russian invasion of Prague to Switzerland and, instead of accepting them, … Continue reading “The Incomprehensible Bastion of Faith in a Social Project / Dora Leonor Mesa”
A little less than a year ago I lived for two weeks thinking I had cancer in my lymph nodes. In November, 2010, a team of pathologists at the “Carlos Manuel de Cespedes” Provincial Hospital in Bayamo signed a yellowish paper, prepared on a typewriter with a number of typing errors, telling me I had … Continue reading “Medical Policy, or Political Medicine? / Ernesto Morales Licea”
It has been two years since I started my blog. Starting it was not an easy decision to make. Fear – such an innate human characteristic – overcame me. I had to decide if I would write using my real name, or one created by me. As a reflection of my true being, I opted … Continue reading “Two Years and A Little Bit of Everything / Rebeca Monzo”
As 2012 begins it seems that the burden of the two currencies will continue on the weary shoulders of Cubans. When, before the Cuban peso was devalued and in a state of coma, and a U.S. dollar strong and active as the trickster deity Eleggua, there were roads everywhere, it was decided to remove the … Continue reading “Two Virtual Currencies / Fernando Dámaso”
A sentence is never free, not when you live in Cuba. Here, the plan of absolute centralization is not only limited to economic relations but also, perhaps even to a greater extent, all reading material is given a pro-government hue. Undivided power in the essential condition for this to happen. Absolutism has made sure that … Continue reading “All Roads Lead to Rome / Jeovany J. Vega”
She said it with a tone somewhere between surprise and disappointment: “They don’t give a damn, Ernesto. How mistaken we exiles are.” And I nodded because I knew too well what she was talking about. For her, a woman from Santiago who hadn’t stepped foot on her native land since 1999, living in Miami and … Continue reading “The Winners’ Trophy / Ernesto Morales Licea”
Havana, 20 December 2011 President Mariano Rajoy, I turn to you on the day my daughter celebrates her birthday. Just thinking of the Cuban young people, I decided to write you these humble and sincere words without standing on ceremony other than to offer you well-deserved congratulations, and to cry for the young of my … Continue reading “Open Letter from the Writer Ángel Santiesteban-Prats to the New President of Spain / Ángel Santiesteban”
It’s complicated to prepare a preschool class according to present pedagogical standards if resources are lacking or the owners of a nursery don’t have a clear idea of what they need. On top of small problems you must also teach preschoolers of differing ages. The experts’ recommendations don’t matter when deciding on activities. Generally it’s … Continue reading “The Imaginary Traffic Light Game / Dora Leonor Mesa”
We have just observed once again the overwhelming vote in the United Nations condemning the U.S. Commercial Embargo against Cuba. An overwhelming vote for others because they also voted against the third party effects at the heart of the extra-territoriality of the Helms-Burton Law. The intense campaign being run by the government this year was … Continue reading “About the Embargoes / Regina Coyula”