English Translations of Cubans Writing From the Island
14ymedio, Henry Constantin, Camagüey, 21 January 2015 — I interviewed Fernando Pérez in a small room of that little movie theater is still left in Camagüey one day after the premiere of his latest production, La pared de las palabras (Wall of Words), a stellar film about which I didn’t ask a single question. I … Continue reading “Yes to Regulation, No to Control / 14ymedio, Henry Constantin”
14ymedio, Reinaldo Escobar, Havana, 28 August 2014 — Henry Constantin is a native of Camagüey province, born in Las Tunas on Valentine’s Day, 30 years ago. He has been expelled from university three times for his ideas, but still believes he will obtain his journalism degree. This slender, plain-spoken young man has founded two independent publications … Continue reading “University (for the Tenacious) / 14ymedio, Henry Constantin, Reinaldo Escobar”
I have been to Korea a couple of times and the memory of it feels like a weight on my chest. People there work from sunup for a monthly salary that only gets them through a week. They do not know what the internet is and have never used email. They arrive punctually for political … Continue reading “Another Ship Bound for Korea / Henry Constantin”
A lighthouse at the entrance of a bay: a sexual metaphor, or a social one, if we see the bay as part of that Cuba that isn’t fertilized, even if the lives of millions of Cubans have been spent in an attempt to make it fertile. This lighthouse does shine; not like the resumes of … Continue reading “A Lighthouse Against Old Discourses / Henry Constantin”
The University belongs to the Revolutionaries, says the slogan on a central wall of the University of Camagüey, the first opened by the government of the older brother, Big Brother, in the gray gray gray years of the seventies, on the northeast side of my city. But today, when sometimes we feel just half gray, … Continue reading “The University / Henry Constantin”
UMAP: Citizens’ force used for the good of society. Brilliant initiative of military cadres. A common school, half in ruins, half with children in uniform, with its Cuban flag and signs on the walls. The boys talk among themselves, then look with curiosity at the stranger, who takes photos of enormous homeless sites behind the … Continue reading “Of UMAP* and Other Demons / Henry Constantin”
I will not site this trip in any place in Cuba because it could have taken place in any of the thousands of fields in this country with any of the hundreds of thousands Cuban peasants. I’ve had travel companions more distinct in this world. I’ve traveled among fresh pines with workers in the sawmills … Continue reading “A Revolution on the Backs of the Humble / Henry Constantin”
Nemesia Rodriguez is the most famous person from the Zapata Swamp. She lives in Soplillar, which is nothing more than houses around a ball field near Playa Larga, in a simple masonry house with iron railings at the door and a comfortable sofa — a gift from by Fidel Castro — in the living room. … Continue reading “So Nemesia Doesn’t Cry / Henry Constantin”
Unbelievable. Some time ago the post office left at my house an envelope full of my maps that I had inadvertently left behind at a little house in Sierra del Cristal, back east. The extraordinary thing is that they arrived at my house two years and two months — the date was shown on the … Continue reading “The Sierra and Forgetting / Henry Constantin”
I came to Cienaga Zapata — the Zapata Swamp — a few days ago, without housing or transportation or mosquitoes or crabs on the roads, only with guidance from a battered map and the goodwill of all the swamp dwellers I found along the way. I wanted to go to Giron (known to Americans as … Continue reading “The Revolution Over the Swamp Henry Constantin”
What you see is the work of the REVOLUTION Thank you Fidel for the first meal of the Revolution Below: The village of Santo Tomas 18 April 2013
What makes a city is its people. The Capitol is not the most important thing in Havana, nor are the abundance of churches and alleys what is most striking of Camagüey, nor is the Moncada Barracks the greatest thing in Santiago, nor are their seawall walks the most pleasant parts of Caibarién, Cienfuegos, Gibara and … Continue reading “The Best Site in Pinar del Rio / Henry Constantin”
A beheaded Indian atop his white horse races around Las Tunas, this faded and drab Eastern balcony what I love so much because there they have loved me. The Indian is a bad omen, according to the elders of Las Tunas, perhaps because of the already genetic fear of a population that in the 19th … Continue reading “L is for Liberty / Henry Constantin”
La Mensura is nearly a kilometer high and 25 individual and dusty kilometers from Mayari, there in the eastern part of Holguin province, Cuba. One kilometer in height that becomes an infinite zigzag to climb, although most travelers find it easy. It is a rough hill, very rough, and guarded: the slopes are like the … Continue reading “Welcome to Do Not Enter / Henry Constantin”
The professor enters the classroom and reads the blackboard. Who wrote this? I raise my hand and she looks at me with a certain threat while she thinks. The entire lecture hall of journalism, second year, expectant. On the blackboard, with chalk and my handwriting “Do you know who is the Cuban nominated for the … Continue reading “Two Trips to Give Thanks / Henry Constantin”
