English Translations of Cubans Writing From the Island
The man dressed in white walks up to the exit gate at the airport. A person with a calculating official face stops him and asks, “Do your clothes have something to do with the Ladies in White? The man’s voice quivers. He’s scared like a deer caught in the headlights. “No, no, I do not … Continue reading “Fear of White / Agustín Valentín López Canino”
Alamar – a pile of concrete blocks without order or agreement – is in this case the work, the artistic object, the clay and the wall on which one has molded and daubed. The artists can be you, me, or anyone else, although for the moment we are going to call them Juan Carlos, Amaury, … Continue reading “Pushing the Limits: Yoani Sanchez Interviews OMNI ZONA FRANCA”
From early in the morning, in the Havana municipality of 10 de Octobre, the elderly man Eladio seeks a few bucks calling out the routes of shared taxis bound for Vedado. According to the list of 178 occupations that can be exercised by the self-employed, this makes Eladio a ’Travel Manager’. Cubans, allergic to the … Continue reading “Not All Cubans Are Happy About the Visit of the Pope / Iván García”
According to reports from neighbors and dissidents, the opponents and activists for racial equality, Sonia Garro Alfonso and Ramón Alejandro Muñoz González, on the evening of Wednesday 21 March, specialized forces of state security and special troops used rubber bullets to make an arrest at their home, located on Avenida 47 No. 11638 between 116 … Continue reading “The Opponents Sonia Garro and Roman Munoz Detained with Extreme Violence / Iván García”
“These are the last caramels! Get ‘em while you can!” shouted Olga — we called her “La Guajira” — in the dorms of our high school in the countryside. My bunkmate sold the food she got from Soviet technicians who bought them in stores that Cubans weren’t allowed to enter. It was the last few … Continue reading “Chavez in Cuba, or Cuba in Chavez? / Yoani Sánchez”
Years ago, when the Granma newspaper opened its Letters to the Editor Section, devoting two pages once a week (Friday), some people thought that, albeit rather belatedly, a small opportunity had been opened to state our views publicly on the various problems facing the nation. The passage of time proved us wrong. I wrote two … Continue reading “Letters to the Editor / Fernando Dámaso”
Yes, that is how they have me, and I suppose many more, the campaign against the Aedes Aegipti mosquito. Any day at any hour they can ring insistently at your door to see if someone is home. Fortunately I live up high. It is almost mandatory to open the doors of your home to strangers, … Continue reading “To The Last Hair! / Rebeca Monzo”
Following the publication of the post “The Broken Showcase” in this blog, in which I noted several criticisms of the Cuban health system and the loss of professional ethics by not a few doctors, a reader was kind enough to send me the letter of a doctor with the surnames Alemán Matías, which circulated on … Continue reading “Cuba Medicine and an Offended Doctor / Miriam Celaya”
“In my house there is no peace,” comments the little boy, age 4, to his surprised grandma. “What are you talking about?” asks the woman, very worried. In her years as a lawyer she’d never heard a child speak this way, much less her oldest grandson. “My dad hits my mom,” the boy responded with … Continue reading “My Dad Hits My Mom / Dora Leonor Mesa”
Everyone around does it. To burn it is a pleasure. Smoking recovers speech hijacked, first by the country’s despotism and later by their own paranoid personalities. Smoking they fornicate (the smoke blocks them and forces them to look themselves in the eye during pleasure). Smoking founds their mercenary Made-in-USAID projects (according to the official press). … Continue reading “In Good Weed Trust / Orlando Luis Pardo Lazo”
I heard it when I was in the patio taking in some clothes I had washed because it looked like rain. I don’t know who shouted to someone on the block that there were potatoes with police. I perked my ears because, like the smartest of the bunch, I was intrigued by this pronouncement. The … Continue reading “Potatoes with Police / Rosa María Rodríguez Torrado”
I heard it when I was in the patio taking in some clothes I had washed because it looked like rain. I don’t know who shouted to someone on the block that there were potatoes with police. I perked my ears because, like the smartest of the bunch, I was intrigued by this pronouncement. The … Continue reading “Potatoes with Police”
How can an admired writer be turned into an alleged and persecuted anti-social? How can one pass from being a creator of stories, a prize-winner, read, respected, cited, to become part of the social evils which, according to the all-powerful authority, it is necessary to mercilessly eradicate? The answer is very simple: Live in Cuba. … Continue reading “The Blessed Who Mourn Like Ángel Santiesteban / Ernesto Morales Licea”
On September 28, 1960, while homemade bombs and firecrackers were being detonated by his political opponents, an angry Fidel Castro created the Committees for the Defense of the Revolution (CDR). From the balcony of the north wing of the Presidential Palace, the guerrilla commander, recently returned from a tour of New York, argued the need … Continue reading “CDR, Castro’s Popular Weapon / Iván García”
When some days ago the Venezuelan chancellor Nicolás Maduro read a plain official note, announcing that President Hugo Chávez Frías, aged 54, would be undergoing surgery in the lower abdomen, few in Cuba paid attention. Maduro’s message was issued in Havana, during a bilateral meeting as part of the strategic alliance signed by Cuba and … Continue reading “The Health of Hugo Chávez Disturbs Many in Cuba / Iván García”
