English Translations of Cubans Writing From the Island
During the time in which I lived in Madrid, a friend of mine from the Island came to visit. Unable to resist his curiosity, he immediately began to pry into my bookshelves (a habit I have to confess, I do not like). When he came across a shelf lined with cassettes, he smirked and in … Continue reading “Censorship: Are You There? (1) / Carlos Espinosa / Polemica, The 2007 Intellectual Debate”
As expected by many for some time, the boss of the National Union of Cuban Artists and Writers (UNEAC), came down from his presidential throne in Holguin. Miguel Barnet himself, accompanied by an entourage of the ten heads of the various sections, appeared in this city to inform members about the irregularities detected by a … Continue reading “A Firing in the Holguin Culture Sector / Luis Felipe Rojas”
“The Little Email War,” “Little Glasnost,” “Rebellion of the Intellectuals” or “The Created Situation,” have been some of the names used to baptize this phenomenon which I prefer to call, “words of the intellectuals” (with the “of” in bold and underlined). Evidently a hole has been opened in this Pandora’s box (which was a gift … Continue reading “The Journalist Reinaldo Escobar Enters the Debate / Polemica, The 2007 Intellectual Debate”
Several friends who follow the blog have asked me why I haven’t commented on Fidel’s statements about the persecution of homosexuals in an interview with the director of the Mexican daily La Jornada. My casual access to the web makes commenting on any current them delayed. But three years ago I followed with great interest … Continue reading “Yesterday’s Homophobia / Regina Coyula”
As a teenager I imagined that writers were wise, sensible, creative, focused and responsible people. For me, a poet was a chosen of God in communion with men, capable to singing to the moon, describing encounters with the stars, and shouting the word freedom before the rifles of the tyrant. With the passage of time … Continue reading “Writers, Awards and Nonsense / Miguel Iturría Savón”
Reina Luisa Tamayo and her daughter. Photo by: Claudio Fuentes Madan There are things I’ve thrown in the trunk of the “incomprehensible.” I would say I won, they defeated me, I couldn’t bear it, they beat me. I refuse to exhaust my brain one more instant in trying to find some logic, some, even minimal, … Continue reading “Inconceivable / Claudia Cadelo”
Ángel Santiesteban Havana 1966. Graduate of Dirección de Cine, resides in Havana, Cuba. In 1989 he won a mention in the Juan Rulfo contest, held by Radio France International, and the story was published in Le Monde Diplomatique, in Letras Cubanas, and in the Mexican magazine El Cuento. In 1995, he won the National Award … Continue reading “Ángel Santiesteban”
For a decade critics have been talking about the poetic, Baroque, telluric and zoomorphic painter Ibrahim Miranda Ramos (Pinar del Rio, 1969), who presents his swarm of metaphors in UNEAC’s Manuela Villa gallery, where he invites us to unravel his allegories on Cuba and the world through the prints of his series Punishment, Bondage and … Continue reading “An Invitation to the Pictoral Universe of I. Miranda”
Since I started this blog I’ve felt like never before the isolation produced by not having a phone line. It’s not that I didn’t want one. If blame needs to be apportioned to anyone or anything besides the boycott and the imperialist menace it should be to my husband who never wanted a phone line … Continue reading “Telephone”
Friday, July 2, while waiting at the Cinemateca to see the French film Rapt (Kidnapping), I was surprised by the commotion of chairs, books and the songs of Joan Manuel Serrat on the Spanish poet Miguel Hernandez, a recurrent figure in Cuban publishing houses, which they were celebrating on another Book Night at 31 points … Continue reading “Authors Blessed and Authors Proscribed”
In his last novel, The Man Who Loved Dogs, the Cuban writer and journalist Leonardo Padura Fuentes tells the story of Ramón Mercader, the man who, with a pickaxe on August 20, 1940, fatally struck the head of Leon Trotski, Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin’s fiercest opponent, and a discreet and cultivated man with a passion … Continue reading “Trotski’s assassin, by Leonardo Padura”
Ángel Santiesteban Havana 1966. Graduate of Dirección de Cine, resides in Havana, Cuba. In 1989 he won a mention in the Juan Rulfo contest, held by Radio France International, and the story was published in Le Monde Diplomatique, in Letras Cubanas, and in the Mexican magazine El Cuento. In 1995, he won the National Award … Continue reading “Ángel Santiesteban – Bio”
Yes, I know that I exaggerate. That I’m subjective. But there’s no cure. I’ve seen the reports of the UNEAC [Cuban Writers and Artists Union] Congress and, what’s left on my retina? Frowning faces and severe glances. Countenances that run from absorbed to absent. Bald spots and grey hairs. Many.