Search results for: padilla

‘Writers and Artists Under Communism’, a Chronicle About the Cuban Government’s Hatred of Culture

14ymedio, Xavier Carbonell, Salamanca, January 6, 2024 — “Down with the apolitical writers! Down with the supermen of literature!” “Their original sin: they are not authentically revolutionary.” “Outside the Revolution, no rights.” The law of eternal return presides over the tension between the intellectuals and communism. Guevara repeats Castro, and Castro repeats Stalin or Mao. … Continue reading “‘Writers and Artists Under Communism’, a Chronicle About the Cuban Government’s Hatred of Culture”

A Cuban Family of Nine Is Rescued in the Mountains of Tijuana After Trying To Reach the United States

14ymedio, Mexico, December 15, 2023 — A family of nine Cubans got lost last Wednesday in the mountainous area from Tijuana to Tecate in the Mexican state of Baja California, in their attempt to reach the United States. The migrants managed to make a phone call to the city council to ask for help and … Continue reading “A Cuban Family of Nine Is Rescued in the Mountains of Tijuana After Trying To Reach the United States”

Political Curators in the Cuban Regime Rehabilitate Italo Calvino on his Centenary

14ymedio, Xavier Carbonell, Salamanca, 15 October 2023 – No one would have guessed that publishing Italo Calvino in Cuba – where an ’absolute freeze’ on his books was declared in 1971 – was going to become a coin of diplomatic currency between Rome and Havana. Scholars and ambassadors, aficionados and bureaucrats, teachers, critics and drowsy … Continue reading “Political Curators in the Cuban Regime Rehabilitate Italo Calvino on his Centenary”

The Toronto Independent Festival Awards the Cuban Film ‘Plantadas’

14ymedio, Havana, 10 October 2023 — The historical feature film Plantadas (Planted)* by Cuban directors Camilo and Lilo Vilaplana, won the award for best international film at the Toronto Independent Festival of Cift, in Canada, the directors of the event announced on Tuesday. Lilo Vilaplana celebrated the award on his Facebook page and thanked his entire … Continue reading “The Toronto Independent Festival Awards the Cuban Film ‘Plantadas’”

Without Books, Uniforms or Teachers, Cuba’s Students Return to Class Under Painful Conditions

14ymedio, Juan Diego Rodríguez, Havana, 4 September 2023 — The school year that began this Monday in Cuba will be the first to follow the regular calendar after the interruptions and incomplete academic years due to the Covid-19 pandemic. However, few starts of the school year as painful as this one are remembered on the … Continue reading “Without Books, Uniforms or Teachers, Cuba’s Students Return to Class Under Painful Conditions”

The Cuban Regime Hijacked the Academy of Languages for Critcising Daniel Ortega

Xavier Carbonell, Salamanca, 15 May 2023 – On 20 June 2022, the Cuban Language Academy (ACuL) sent out a laconic message: the poet Roberto Méndez, who should have led the institution until 2026, gave up his post “for health reasons”. His successor would be the essayist Jorge Fornet, the then vice-director and one of the … Continue reading “The Cuban Regime Hijacked the Academy of Languages for Critcising Daniel Ortega”

Polarization in Cuba Is Part of a General Crisis, Says Academic Andres Ordonez

EFE (via 14ymedio), Mexico, 20 May 2023 — The Mexican academic Andrés Ordóñez regretted this Saturday the radicalisms in the debates on the Cuban Revolution and considered that they are not something exclusive to the Island but a trend in today’s world. “We are living in times of polarization. That intolerance, that propensity to disqualify … Continue reading “Polarization in Cuba Is Part of a General Crisis, Says Academic Andres Ordonez”

Killing the Castro We Carry Inside Us

14ymedio, Yunior García Aguilera, Madrid, 2 May 2023 — The Cuban dictatorship has practiced for decades the exclusion and extermination of anyone who thinks differently. They shot and put thousands of adversaries behind bars, locked others in concentration camps, ostracized hundreds of artists and intellectuals, and pushed almost a quarter of the population into forced … Continue reading “Killing the Castro We Carry Inside Us”

Baseball player Yosimar Cousin, ‘Blockaded’ by the Cuban Baseball Federation, is Hired in the United States

14ymedio, Havana, 20 April 2023 — The Cuban Yosimar Cousín, who in 2021 thought about “not continuing to play baseball” because the Cuban Baseball Federation (FCB) cut off a contract with the Mexican team Charros, signed this Wednesday with the Chicago White Sox. The agreement is “2,000,000 dollars for two years and he will have … Continue reading “Baseball player Yosimar Cousin, ‘Blockaded’ by the Cuban Baseball Federation, is Hired in the United States”

Cuban Writer Eduardo Heras Leon, ‘Counterrevolutionary’ and Loyal to Fidel Castro, Dies

14ymedio, Havana, April 13, 2023 — Cuban writer, journalist and publisher Eduardo Heras León, National Prize for Literature in 2014, passed away this Thursday in Havana at the age of 82. Founder of the Onelio Jorge Cardoso Literary Training Center, he was one of the intellectuals “parameterized”* during the so-called Grey Quinquennium, the Five Grey … Continue reading “Cuban Writer Eduardo Heras Leon, ‘Counterrevolutionary’ and Loyal to Fidel Castro, Dies”

Jorge Edwards in Cuba: A Spy in the Land of Slogans

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”

‘To Write the Biography of Lezama is to Write a History of Cuban Culture’

14ymedio, Xavier Carbonell, Salamanca, 2 January 2022 — In a calm voice, Ernesto Hernández Busto (Havana, 1968) says that, at the funeral of José Lezama Lima, an alleged spy filmed everything with a camera. The video, which no one has seen, must have been hidden in the secret archives of ICAIC [Cuban Institute of Cinematographic … Continue reading “‘To Write the Biography of Lezama is to Write a History of Cuban Culture’”

‘El Toque’ Denounces Harassment Against its Journalists in Cuba

14ymedio, Havana, 1 September 2022 — The editorial team of the independent news source El Toque denounced on Wednesday, from its editorial office in Cuba, the harassment by State Security of nine young journalists, who, as a result, gave up their jobs. During a conference broadcast on YouTube, the directors, residing abroad, answered the questions … Continue reading “‘El Toque’ Denounces Harassment Against its Journalists in Cuba”

A Documentary Rescues the Writer Lezama Lima from the Clutches of the Cuban Regime

14ymedio, Xavier Carbonell, Salamanca, 21 August 2022 — In order to “stir up the anthill,” on the 45th anniversary of the death of Cuban writer José Lezama Lima (1910-1976), last Sunday the filmmaker Ernesto Fundora, at the Rosario Castellanos Bookstore of the Fund for Economic Culture, in Mexico City, screened his documentary “Lezama Lima: Soltar la … Continue reading “A Documentary Rescues the Writer Lezama Lima from the Clutches of the Cuban Regime”

The Reclusive Poet / Carlos Manuel Alvarez, Regina Coyula

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”