English Translations of Cubans Writing From the Island
A contagious song by a Cuban salsero asks in its chorus for a long bridge to be built between La Havana and Miami. Perhaps in the not so distant future the engineers and architects will consider such a possibility. The so-called City of the Sun appears to be an appendix of Latin America. In jest, … Continue reading “Tending Bridges / Iván García”
When, on the 6th of September, more than two million children, teenagers and adults began the new school year in Cuba, for their parents it meant yet another problem. The youngest of them carry schoolbags weighed down with water, buns, sweets and soda. And even food. They look like mountain climbers. As the mid-morning snack … Continue reading “The Showcase of Cuban Education is Showing Cracks / Iván García”
Walking through the recently restored Plaza Vieja in the historic center of Havana, I noticed a large poster with photos with landslides, debris, garbage, etc., which read: SO AS NOT TO FORGET. I looked for some date and didn’t find any: when the photos were taken is not clear. I asked some of the young … Continue reading “So As Not To Forget / Fernando Dámaso”
In October, when the Swedish Academy awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature to the Peruvian writer Mario Vargas Llosa, author of The City and the Dogs, Conversation in the Cathedral and The Feast of the Goat, the Cuban press downplayed the contributions of the great novelist and wasted ink on slander, due to the author’s … Continue reading “The Press That Devalues the Writer / Miguel Iturria Savón”
OUTS BY RULE Orlando Luis Pardo Lazo Of course, there are players. They are high performance soldiers. Who pays the piper calls the tune. For these are the country’s professionals. And there they go, to an Intercontinental Cup on the other side of the world. In indignant single file. Without their captain, Frederich Cepeda (or … Continue reading “PAÁFATA, THIS IS A BAT FOR THE FACE…! / Orlando Luis Pardo Lazo”
The Cuban Ministry of Education prohibits teachers’ use of any punishment, whether verbal or physical, on students of all levels of education. However, although the official media do not report it, through word of mouth from independent journalists, alarming cases of school violence have come to light. In almost all cases they appear to involve … Continue reading “Another Cuban Evil: School Violence / Iván García”
Photo: Claudio Fuentes Madan One of the new self-employment “activities” approved by the Cuban government is the controversial “recyclers-sellers of raw materials.” This toughest “private enterprise” encompasses Havana’s beggers who survive on collecting what the rest of the society throws out. Several years ago Claudio Fuentes Madan was making a series of paintings using the … Continue reading “Recycling / Claudia Cadelo”
This evening, I wanted to buy cakes from the man who hawks his goods in front of my house. I can’t remember the conversation verbatim, but this is the essence of it. He built a house of masonry with a roof of light materials in Marianao, behind the Military Technical Institute. In 2004, coming back … Continue reading “Bitter Cakes / Regina Coyula”
-Painting by Lori Mcnamara December 16th 2006 could have been a day just like any other in detachment No. 1 of the Sancti Spiritus provincial prison. But that day we awoke, in addition to a requisition, with the news that Javier had just injected petroleum in his legs with the aim to have them amputated … Continue reading “Escape to Eternity / Voices Behind The Bars / Omar Ruiz Hernandez”
The sun beats down hard on the grey and white building located on Aguila street at the corner of Dragones, next to Chinatown in Havana. On that piece of real estate which was long ago given up by the Cuban Telephone Company, are the offices of ETESCA, the Empresa Cubana de Telecomunicaciones (the Cuban Telecommunications Company). On his morning walk … Continue reading “An Act of Repudiation from Within”
He doesn’t look quite the same as English footballer David Beckham, or the Spanish actor Antonio Banderas. He’s Cuban, his name is Carlos and he was born 24 years ago in a village in the middle of the Venezulea sugar-growing region, in the province of Ciego de Avila, about 375 miles from Havana. He likes … Continue reading “Armani, Take Note”
In the city of Havana, the number of mentally ill street people in their filthy and ragged clothing increases on a daily basis. The number of beggars is also going up — you can find them in just about any doorway lying on cardboard asking for change with their lost looks. And on any corner there are street vendors selling peanuts, cheap things, loose … Continue reading “Beggars and Mentally Ill Havanans”
She walks towards the exit of the neighborhood. Although it makes her late she doesn’t hurry, the years have given her patience. She enjoys the feeling of relief it gives her to leave the apartment. And she enjoys it more because she knows it won’t last long. Her apartment is a box divided into four … Continue reading “The Life of Sisyphus – Part 5”
The guardian angel of today is Abilio Estévez. Playwright, storyteller and poet, well-known and a winner of literary awards, this Cuban who lives in Barcelona has published mid-year the novel The Sleeping Navigator, the final part of a trilogy that examines three tragic moments of a family and a city. A family that tries, without … Continue reading “Nothing makes us different”
(Text written on June 7, and for reasons you can imagine published today. This clarification is to connect it chronologically with respect to the news published in the newspaper Granma on June 10 about sanctions for illegal solid waste collectors, that is so-called “divers”.) Slowly, imperceptibly, the dumpster has become part of my life. (Before … Continue reading “The dumpster and me”