English Translations of Cubans Writing From the Island
14ymedio, Reinaldo Escobar, Havana, 25 September 2017 — When leaving the Argos Theater after the performance of Love Letters to Stalin, a good part of the audience needs to shake their heads. Like someone waking from a nightmare, there will be those who, for long minutes, fear that the monsters from the dream might appear around … Continue reading “The Intellectual and Power, More Than an Epistolary Relationship”
Cubanet, Luis Cino Alvarez, 24 August 2017 — In his hardline speech to Cuban Communist Party (PCC) cadres, Vice President Miguel Díaz-Canel killed any illusions some may have harbored that a future government headed by him, following Raúl Castro’s retirement,* would tend towards reforms and be less authoritarian and repressive. Assuming the stance of a … Continue reading “Díaz-Canel: Killer of Illusions / Cubanet, Luis Cino Alvarez”
14ymedio, Havana, 15 April 2017 — A statement signed by the Council of the University Student Federation (FEU) of ‘Marta Abreu’ Central University of Las Villas ratified the expulsion of student Karla Pérez González from the journalism department. “The university students will never accept the counterrevolution within our universities,” says the text published Friday. The statement … Continue reading ““The Student Body Will Never Accept The Counterrevolution””
Danilo Maldonado Machado, also known as “El Sexto” (The Sixth) is a graffiti artist in Cuba, imprisoned since December 25, 2014 for attempting to perform an artistic action in a public space. Danilo has spent 9 months in the Valle Grande prison, charged with the crime of Contempt, and is waiting for a judicial process, … Continue reading “Distribute and Act on to Save the Live of El Sexto / Orlando Luis Pardo Lazo”
“What right does anyone have to rule over everyone’s thoughts?” The question, deeply subversive towards the Cuban reality, is at the heart of the open letter that artist Juan Carlos Cremata recently sent to an unknown Culture officer by the name of Andy Arencibia Concepción after a commission of the National Council of Theatre Arts … Continue reading “Cremata Expresses an Artist’s Bellyful Against Cultural Repression / 14ymedio, Miriam Celaya”
Barnet accompanied by Castro’s mobs in Panama City, Panama. We reproduce here an excellent article by Felix Viera about Miguel Barnet, president of UNEAC (Cuban Writers and Artists Union) and one of the most servile cultural commissar of Castro’s dictatorship. In the article Viera offers the example of what has happened to Angel Santiesteban. Félix … Continue reading “The Languid and Protean Miguel Barnet / Angel Santiesteban”
Cubanet, Victor Manuel Dominguez, Havana, 29 May 2015 – “P.M.,” that short documentary made by Orlando Jimenez Leal and Saba Cabrera Infante, was the beginning of the end of freedom of expression in Cuban Culture. Conceived in the beginning as a four-minute report that would establish a parallel between the militants who installed canons on … Continue reading “14 Minutes that Shook the Revolution / Cubanet, Victor Manuel Dominguez”
By Ambrosio Fornet / See here for background information on this series of posts. 1 It seemed as if the nightmare was something from a remote past, but the truth is that when we awoke, the dinosaur was still there. We haven’t found out — and perhaps will never know — if the media folly was … Continue reading “The Five Grey Years: Revisiting the Term / Ambrosio Fornet”
Havana, Cuba – If April was the cruelest month for the Anglo-American poet T.S. Eliot, for Cuban writers and artists it has always been a nightmare. Disqualifications, censorship, marginalization and prison for ideological, sexual and religious “deviations” turn the freedom of creation into a nightmare. While the so-called “Words to the intellectuals” — Within the … Continue reading “You Don’t Remember the Parametracion*? / Victor Manuel Dominguez”
Una Noche (One Night) is the film which best reflects why it is that young people leave Cuba. That’s how a female friend of mine, who is a lover of the seventh art, laconically replied to my question, after visiting the film exhibition in the 34th Festival of New Latin-American Cinema, which took place in … Continue reading “One Night: A Critical View of Cuban Social Reality / Dimas Castellano”
Before anything else, please forgive me for entering so late into the discussion. My life is very complicated precisely because of the climate of indifference, incapacity and/or corruption that I see confirmed in all the applications to the housing “machine”. I am appalled! I mention it because in my opinion what brought an end to … Continue reading “Marina Ochoa’s Messages / POLEMICA: The 2007 Intellectual Debate”
Dear Friends and Comrades: Suddenly, more than thirty years after his dismissal, Luis Pavón, ex-president of the National Council of Culture during the euphemistically called “Five Grey Years,” reappeared in the public sphere on nothing more nor less than an entire programme on National Television dedicated to “his cultural impact on Cuban culture.” So, was … Continue reading “Messages of Desiderio Navarro / POLEMICA: The 2007 Intellectual Debate”
—Did you hear? —What? About the robbery of the giraffe from Havana’s zoo? —Yeah, a giraffe, four monkeys and a pony, but I’m not talking about that… —Those guys must have been ninjas. A Cuban version of “Madagascar,” “Calabazar[1]: The Story of How a Group of Zoo Animals Trying to Prevent their Friends from Becoming … Continue reading “The Great News / Enrique del Risco”
Editor’s note: This article was originally published at time of Luis Pavón Tamayo’s reappearance on Cuba Television in 2007, and was translated to post here on the occasion of his recent death. On more than a few occasions, those who analyze Cuba and even those directly engaged in the country, compare it to a game … Continue reading “A Pawn to Distract You / Alexis Romay”
Speaking: Raudel Collazo, from Patriot Squadron. Sadly… the situation is a little complicated… my voice… my poetry… it is not permitted to hear it… it’s a word like censorship… STATEMENT OF COOPERATIVE PRODUCTIONS To Whom It May Concern: The reason for this letter is an event that happened on March 6, 2012, Year 53 of … Continue reading “AWAKENING / Orlando Luis Pardo Lazo”