English Translations of Cubans Writing From the Island
Cubanet, 4 April 2017, Havana, Luis Cino Álvarez — A friend was telling me, horrified, that last Friday at the Hard Rock Café in Hollywood Beach, Florida, Cuban reggaetoneros [musicians who perform the musical genre of Reggaeton]–from the Island and from ‘over there’, no way to tell anymore what with all the going and coming–put … Continue reading “Castro Conquers Miami With Cannon Blasts / Luis Cino Alvarez”
14ymedio, Generation Y, Yoani Sanchez, Havana, 11 January 2017 — My mother had a T-shirt with the face of the Spanish singer Julio Iglesias, bought in the informal market in the early eighties. At a meeting of the Union of Young Communists they warned her she could not continue to wear it. The author of … Continue reading “Julio And Enrique Iglesias, Two Moments In The Life Of Cuba / 14ymedio, Yoani Sanchez”
4ymedio, Havana, 25 December 2015 — The Cuban duo Gente de Zona had a meteoric year, partly due to the continued success of their song Bailando (Dancing), performed with the Spanish singer Enrique Iglesias and the Cuban Descemer Bueno. Their theme La Gozadera (Sheer Pleasure) climbed the charts and became a summer hit in 2015, … Continue reading “Cuban Faces of 2015: Gente de Zona, Musical Duo / 14ymedio”
14ymedio, Havana, Luzbely Escobar, 11 September 2014 – When I was younger and went out looking for something to do in Havana’s evenings or nights, one day I stumbled over Julio. I went out with a girlfriend from Berlin and he was looking to make a living scamming innocent foreigners. He approached us intending to … Continue reading “Ministerial Hustling / 14ymedio”
Under a brightly colored umbrella, a representative of Gaviota, a tourism chain, the property of businessmen in the Cuban military, offers an inclusive leisure package for the summer. The bureau of reservations is nestled in an old parking lot of a strip mall in 5th Avenue and 42nd, Miramar, to the west of Havana. It … Continue reading “Cuba: Is Varadero for People of Another Social Class? / Ivan Garcia”
There is an abysmal gap between daily reality and the information offered by a clueless official press. Never in Granma, Juventud Rebelde (Rebel Youth) Trabajadores (Workers) or any of the 15 provincial press organs was there news of the Castro regime’s flagrant arms smuggling to North Korea in violation of the United Nations’ embargo of … Continue reading “Cuba: The Clueless Official Press / Ivan Garcia”
For Castroist ideologues, the activists in Kiev and the Venezuelan students are fascists, Kim Jong-un doesn’t traffic in weapons with Havana, and Beyoncé never visited the Island. There is an abysmal gap between everyday reality and the information provided by a clueless official press. News of the Castro regime’s blatant arms smuggling with North Korea, … Continue reading “The Press That Disinforms / Ivan Garcia”
The State brigade arrived in Vibora’s Red Plaza and in no time at all erected a slapdash wood and metal platform. On the nights of December 31 and January 1, a crowd fueled by cheap rum and bad beer will see in 2014 dancing to a Cuban timba orchestra. The guys who set up the … Continue reading “New Years in Havana / Ivan Garcia”
The American Gary Marks’s stay in Cuba, from 1998 to 2002, and his contacts with segments of our intelligentsia anchored in everyday survival, sparked the interest of the northern professional in documenting the contrasts. How? Through a DVD documentary about the unbreakable friendship of two artists, one who went rafting to Florida during the mass … Continue reading “Dream Havana / Miguel Iturria Savón”
