English Translations of Cubans Writing From the Island
Some words about the most recent Nobel Prize winner in Literature and the reaction literally in chains from the little Island of the Begrudger… A NOBLE NOBEL Orlando Luis Pardo Lazo I came to Mario Vargas Llosa early in the 90´s (quite late in my life), thanks to a mention of him in a short … Continue reading “Our Vargas Llosa who art in Nobel… / Orlando Luis Pardo Lazo”
Betania Publishing House is making the document available to readers for free download. 14ymedio, Havana, 19 June 2025 — Written in 1988 by writer Reinaldo Arenas and artist Jorge Camacho, A Plebiscite on Fidel Castro was neither a pamphlet nor an angry proclamation, but an open letter written from exile—between New York and Paris—calling for … Continue reading “‘A Plebiscite on Fidel Castro’ Is Once Again Circulating Freely After 35 Years”
The distrust surrounding the Correa candidate was fueled by her ideological sympathy for the authoritarian regimes of Cuba, Venezuela, and Nicaragua. 14ymedio, Yoani Sánchez, Generation Y, 25 April 2025 — When I was a child, the logo of a man with a sombrero and a machete belonging to the Committees for the Defense of the … Continue reading “The Shadow of the Committees for the Defense of the Revolution Over Ecuador”
14ymedio, Xavier Carbonell, Salamanca, 9 April 2023 – The apathy of Cuban intellectuals after the death of Jorge Edwards contributed to the fact that the regime’s censorship managed to render him invisible. The machinery of the Cuban press lives by a certain law of fiction, and that fiction selects, redacts, patches over and twists the … Continue reading “Jorge Edwards in Cuba: A Spy in the Land of Slogans”
14ymedio, Reinaldo Escobar, Havana, 27 December 2022 — Reading economist Oscar Espinosa Chepe in an article published in 2003, a few weeks after his inclusion among the Black Spring prisoners, I learned and understood the importance of the concept of “decapitalization of the material base” in the Cuban economy, especially with regard to the absence … Continue reading “Cuba is Worth Less Every Day and the New Generations Will Inherit an Exhausted Country”
14ymedio, Yunior García Aguilera, Madrid, 28 September 2022 — I was finally able to see The Padilla Case, Pavel Giroud’s film that brings to light a disconcerting, devastating historical archive. The original material remained hidden in the vaults of the Castro regime for half a century, until now. And it’s urgent that we look back … Continue reading “The Padilla case, or the ‘Generous’ Terror of the Cuban Revolution”
By Carlos Manuel Álvarez, published in Univision News, 19 May 2016 Published in Malaletra, a Blog Made in Cuba, Regina Coyula, 11 July 2016 He looks like a god but is a heretic. He seems carved in stone, but is a nervous wreck. He looks like the first among men, but is just the last … Continue reading “The Reclusive Poet / Carlos Manuel Alvarez, Regina Coyula”
14ymedio, Yoani Sánchez, Havana, 30 January 2022 — There was a time when I would leave school and walk as fast as I could until I reached several used book stores that were on my way home. After completing the journey, it was not uncommon to have in my hands a volume of Victor Hugo, … Continue reading “Coup de Grace at the Havana Book Fair”
14ymedio, Carlos Alberto Montaner, Miami, 1 January 2022 — It is worth reviewing what happened in Cuba in the preceding months. Year after year, and we are already on our way to the 63rd anniversary, I have said we were near the end. I believed it, but it was not true. I thought that Fidel … Continue reading “Sixty-Three Anniversaries of the Cuban Revolution”
14ymedio, Havana, 9 November 2021 — Peruvian author and winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature, Mario Vargas Llosa, former presidents, world leaders, ministers, politicians, academics, and journalists from several countries have expressed, through a letter, their support for the peaceful protests organized by Archipiélago for November 15th in Cuba. “We support and back the … Continue reading “Intellectuals, Politicians and Journalists Sign a Letter in Support of 15 November Marches in Cuba”
EFE (via 14ymedio), Miami, 27 April 2021 — The well-known public confession of the Cuban poet Heberto Padilla (1932-2000), which shocked the literary world 50 years ago because it was a manipulation of Castroism, has been staged in a new choral reading, with English subtitles. [See English transcript here.] About twenty Cuban artists and intellectuals read … Continue reading “Giving Voice to the ‘Self-Criticism’ of Cuban Poet Heberto Padilla, 50 Years Later”
International Foundation For Freedom (via 14ymedio), Madrid, 23 April 2020 — We, the undersigned, share the concern about the Covid-19 pandemic that has caused a large number of infections and death throughout the world, and we extend our solidarity to the families in mourning. While public and private healthcare employees fight the coronavirus valiantly, many governments … Continue reading “Don’t Let the Pandemic be a Pretext for Authoritarianism”
Yolanda Huerga (Radio Televisión Martí), April, 19, 2020 — It’s been 17 years since that April 19 when a group of Cuban artists and writers signed a letter supporting the imprisonment of 75 dissidents, the execution of three young men and life sentences for the other four, after they hijacked a boat with the intention … Continue reading “When The Intellectuals Supported “The Terror Of Castrismo.” Seventeen Years After The “Message From Havana.””
14ymedio, Carlos A. Montaner, Miami, October 12, 2019 — The Madrid newspaper El País recounted it. Mario Vargas Llosa expressed the opinion, publicly, that perhaps Fidel Castro would not have become radicalized if the CIA, in conspiracy with United Fruit, had not ousted Colonel Jacobo Árbenz in a coup d’etat in 1954. Fidel Castro, Vargas Llosa reminds … Continue reading “The Radicalization of Fidel Castro”
14ymedio, Carlos Alberto Montaner, 23 June 2019 — Gloria Álvarez has returned to the charge. She has written How to Talk to a Conservative. This volume is the logical derivation of another very successful and very controversial text of hers: How to Talk to a Progressive. Her new work carries two claims in its subtitles: Why instead of encouraging it conservatism … Continue reading “The Ideas of Freedom: The Debate Continues”
