English Translations of Cubans Writing From the Island
Orlando, 2nd from right, and his mother María, far right, with two friends. We started university. It was Havana 1991. One afternoon we went to sit in the stands at the university stadium. We had no desire to remain in the classroom. At times we knew biochemistry as science-fiction, in a Biology Department where there … Continue reading “1991 / Orlando Luis Pardo Lazo”
CENSORSHIP WITHOUT CENSORING Orlando Luis Pardo Lazo 2003 was a deadly year for Cuba. In March, the government declared an open war on the citizens. In less than a few hours, the Police arrested over a hundred peaceful dissidents and independent journalists from all across the island. Although the international press nicknamed the most notable … Continue reading “Book Fair or Fidel of the Books / Orlando Luis Pardo Lazo”
A ROSE IN YOUR HAIR PERISHES Orlando Luis Pardo Lazo There aren’t enough of the stupid-ass songs. Because those same songs, the ones we joked stupid-assedly about in our rage-filled adolescence, are now the only thing left that allows us to know what we were, what we are, what we will be. With those songs, we can forget about … Continue reading “Music After The Death of Fidel / Orlando Luis Pardo Lazo”
The Silence of Alan Gross Orlando Luis Pardo Lazo We live not in the civilization of media, but of the mediocre. And from there directly we inhabit the miserable. Cubans desperately need witnesses to our tragedy. In the absence of politicians on the Island, we pin our hopes on any alternative voice: bloggers, musicians, graffiti … Continue reading “Alan GGross / Orlando Luis Pardo Lazo”
Tempting the Cuban Transition Orlando Luis Pardo Lazo FOLLOW THIS EVENT ONLINE HERE and HERE Since December 17th, when President Obama and General Raul Castro performed their simultaneous speeches, many Americans insist on congratulating me. I wonder why no Cuban has congratulated me so far, and why I still haven’t congratulated any other Cuban, whether in favor … Continue reading “Sunday: Orlando Luis Pardo Lazo at Northwestern University for a Free Cuba, Damn It!”
Alan Gross, like every North American who comes in contact with the Castro regime and defends it even from within a captivity of little lies — attacking his own government with million-dollar demands — is a bad man. Gross’s little suicide threats, his lack of solidarity with Cubans in exile and civil society on the Island, … Continue reading “Look at Me, Miami and, If You Value Your Death, Don’t Cry / Orlando Luis Pardo Lazo”
*STAND CLEAR OF THE CLOSING DOORS PLEASE.* *Orlando Luis Pardo Lazo* 1 April 2013 Recurring dreams, dreams in the electrical night of the third rail when the moon is a cutout on New York’s clouds of smoke. Cloud-tunnels of Elizabeth Bishop. Cloud-graffiti of Rene Magritte. I have dreamed them, daily. I drop a couple of … Continue reading “The MTA Story / Orlando Luis Pardo Lazo”
Total, infinite pity and shame! The teacher Odali has written Maceo (Antonio Maceo, hero of the Cuban War of Independence) with an “s” on my primary school blackboard, and I started crying. I couldn’t help it. That’s what happened. She wrote “Maseo” with her chalk and I started to cry in the middle of the … Continue reading “Cubans, damn it! / Orlando Luis Pardo Lazo”
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vBYUOOEHbJw&w=420&h=315] Che’s Beatle Girlfriend Orlando Luis Pardo Lazo No doubt her name was Una. Or Agatha. Or Lil. Or Ide. O Brighid. Or Sinead. Or Nora. Or Tilde. Or perhaps Alaidh or Hilde. Any one of those Irish names reminiscent of other names whose etymology is tirelessly, anxiously, apocryphally Anglo. For a native of … Continue reading “Macho Che / Orlando Luis Pardo Lazo”
When did we disappear while a nation? When did Cuba stop being one? Or perhaps it never fully was one? Nations are human inventions, impulses of our historical imagination. Cuba was the story that we told ourselves. A chronic story and, therefore, unbelievably believable. We never had any democrats. The Republic’s great milestones are nothing … Continue reading “Without Cuba / Orlando Luis Pardo Lazo”
Please send this text to: christian.leffler@eeas.europa.eu and add your signature to mine if you wish. Thank you! Friday 9 January 2015 Your Excellency Mr. Christian Leffler, Managing Director for the Americas of the European External Action Service christian.leffler@eeas.europa.eu After the meetings held in Havana (29-30 April 2014) and Brussels (27-28 August 2014), Raul Castro’s government unilaterally … Continue reading “Open Letter to the European Union About Free Cuba / Orlando Luis Pardo Lazo”
Note: OLPL appears in this video speaking in English
THE COPY-PASTE OF REVOLUTIOPHRENIA Orlando Luis Pardo Lazo Before Facebook, I met Eliécer Jiménez only once, in an alternative cultural debate in Camagüey, three years ago. He was somewhat shy, but resolute in his urge to be creative in cinematographic terms. No money, no contacts, no political pedigree. A dreamer in a province that looked … Continue reading “Entropy of Eliecer Jimenez at Brown University / Orlando Luis Pardo Lazo”
Last Christmas with Fidel Castro -Orlando Luis Pardo Lazo December is a sad month, precious, blue-lit and dreamily silent. I was born in this month. And in this month, in a year not so distant as it now appears, I shall return to Cuba with a Nobel Prize in Literature, the first of the Cuban … Continue reading “Fideless / Orlando Luis Pardo Lazo”
How to Raise Funds: A Manual for Cuban Democrats Clive Rudd, Orlando Luis Pardo Lazo The successive “investigations” (or filtrations of intelligence) of the Associated Press (AP) and other media, that try to demonize the material support of Non Governmental Organizations (NGOs) and governments in solidarity with the democratic cause in Cuba, is not … Continue reading “MONEY MONEY MONEY / Orlando Luis Pardo Lazo and Clive Rudd”