English Translations of Cubans Writing From the Island
To celebrate World Book Day — and the Castilian language — on 23 April, the online edition of the daily El Pais has presented to readers in Latin America with Voces para un Cervantes (Voices for a Cervantes) to download on computers and ebook tablets. The collection “brings together interviews that this newspaper has undertaken … Continue reading “Voices of the Cervantes / Miguel Iturria Savon”
The Revolution has maybe two or three weekends left. Then, before or after that bad metaphor which is the arrival of spring, we’ll be living in a full holocaust. The State will probably have to kill liberally in order to survive two or three more weekends. The exiles, it will be fairly easy to trap … Continue reading “As I Write Dying / Orlando Luis Pardo Lazo”
The year, 2050. The regime, still in power. The Coppelia ice cream stand, the most famous in Cuba, is in ruins, and tree roots have played havoc with the granite floor. Amid the rusty iron columns a couple of guys are trying to light a fire. They are rubbing two sticks together in the most … Continue reading “Really? Cubans Never Joke About the Revolution? / Yoani Sanchez”
There was a definitive moment for your career as a writer that I believe is worth remembering, even when I know that it can be a difficult question: your meeting with the writer Eduardo Heras Leon. Leaving aside the possible differences that you could have had from the clear ideological differences between Eduardo and us, … Continue reading “Interview of Cuban writer Ángel Santiesteban Prats by Amir Valle – Part 2 of 4”
[In this part of an unedited interview, which I don’t know when it will be published, I respond to the question: “Ciego de Ávila: Love or scorn?”] I have tried to invent the province lovingly, although for that I had to give a primary form to that love without obligation until it was more or … Continue reading “Huge Hell Whether it Works or Not (For the Poetry of the ’90s) / Francis Sánchez”
Interview of Salvador Bueno (fragment*) I met him in 1998. That year, on October 12, he received the “José Vasconcelos” prize in a ceremony at the National Hotel in Havana. The gold medal, conferred by the Hispanic Affirmation Front (HAF) to intellectuals of the Castillian language for lifetime achievement, had already gone to figures of … Continue reading “Salvador, a Seat Occupied in Cuban Literature / Francis Sánchez”
THE DAWN* OF WAITING Orlando Luis Pardo Lazo José Lezama Lima waited for the death of his mother before feeling guilt-free enough to publish the scandalous Paradiso. Virgilio Piñera waited to amass 18 boxes of unedited material before letting himself die of loneliness or of State Security. Dulce María Loynaz sat down, like a character … Continue reading “WWWAITING FOR THE WWWORMS / Orlando Luis Pardo Lazo”
When the documentary was close to its end, I discovered an unbelievable sensation deep inside of me: the “destination” Claudia Palacios was proposing was absolutely unknown to me and made me feel the urge to visit it. CNN, through one of its reporters of spectacular beauty and proven professionalism, had just managed to make a … Continue reading “CNN’s Havana / Ernesto Morales Licea”
Dear Desideri, Receive once more a warm embrace from this friend “beyond the capital.” I welcome your fair challenge to the title of “GROUP” being applied to the large and diverse number of participants in the current debate, and the last paragraphs, about our “culture of spectacle” (and their “controls”), motivate me even more. But … Continue reading “Messages from José Rojas Bez / POLEMICA: The 2007 Intellectual Debate”
This last Sunday, as I was coming back home from visiting a friend, I crossed the bridge over the Almendares River. And looking at this river, I remembered that beautiful poem the famous poet, Dulce María Loynáz (1902-1997) wrote, inspired by it. I met this great lady late in her life, when she was already … Continue reading “To the Almendares River / Rebeca Monzo”
Like Gertrudis Gómez de Avellaneda (Camaguey, 1814-Madrid, 1873), the great poet, essayist and journalist Gaston Baquero Díaz (Banes, Holguin, 1918 – Madrid, 1997) moved between Cuba and Spain, where he went in March 1959, when the revolution toppled the social pyramid to which his talent had elevated him, despite poverty and racial prejudice. Unlike Madam … Continue reading “A Poet of “Sumptuous Sensuality” / Miguel Iturria Savón”
I do not think there is better way to weigh the worth or the worthlessness of the media in a country, than to carefully analyze what they themselves do. Like few other jobs in the world, journalism has a peculiarity which at times is its own worst enemy: its raison d’etre is public consumption. No … Continue reading “Orphaned From Journalism (Part 3, Final) / Ernesto Morales Licea”
Communists or dissidents, famous or unknown, Cubans love awards and competitions. Of all kinds, national and foreign. They delight in being chosen and enjoy the glory they feel when they win. It doesn’t matter if the prize is a diploma or a work of art. The money, yes. In pesos, it’s not bad, but in … Continue reading “Cuba Will Have to Put Its Dreams of a Nobel Prize on Hold / Iván García”
14ymedio, Manuel Llorente, Madrid, 14 October 2022 — Federico García Lorca’s first adventure in the Americas could not have been more beneficial for him. The young man who, with a broken heart, embarked for the United States in 1929, bore no resemblance to the man who returned to Cádiz on 30 June 1930 aboard the … Continue reading “Garcia Lorca in Cuba: Diary of a Resurrection”
