English Translations of Cubans Writing From the Island
14ymedio, Havana, 8 March 2023 — Cuban singer and songwriter Leoni Torres released on his digital platforms the video clip Corazón roto [Broken Heart], one of the songs that will be part of his next mini album, which will be premiered at the end of April. The singer collaborated with Raúl del Sol, Ángel Pututi, … Continue reading “Cuban Singer Leoni Torres Releases ‘Corazon Roto’, Salsa With an ‘Urban Touch’”
EFE (via 14ymedio), Havana, 10 December 2022 — The Cuban singer-songwriter Silvio Rodríguez was awarded, this Friday, with the Choir of Honor at the awards gala of the International Festival of New Latin American Cinema in Havana. The gala was the culmination of the festival, which since December 1 has screened hundreds of films, and … Continue reading “‘The Revolution is Lucidity,’ says Silvio Rodriguez on Receiving a Prize at the Film Festival in Havana”
14ymedio, Ariel Hidalgo, Miami, 3 December 2022 – Those who today, even after his death, reproach Pablo Milanés for what he said or stopped doing in previous times, have a very selective memory. The majority of people who lived during the first two decades of the Revolution belonged to the Committees for the Defence of … Continue reading “Pablito, and Selective Historical Memory”
Diario de Cuba, Orlando Luis Pardo Lazo, Saint Louis, 24 November 2022 — An icon of Castroism has died. Pablo Milanés now belongs to history. May the soul of a contemporary Cuban rest in peace. Thank you for allowing us to be your exceptional witnesses. We promise to tell the Cubans to come about you, with … Continue reading “You Can Still Love and Be Happy in a Dictatorship”
EFE (via 14ymedio), New York, 12 November 2022 — The feature film Cuentos de un día más, by a collective of Cuban independent filmmakers, won the coveted award for Best Film at the Havana Film Festival in New York this Thursday. The film, which was made under the coordination of director Fernando Pérez, presents six … Continue reading “The Award for Best Film at the Havana Festival in NY Goes to a Cuban Independent Film”
14ymedio, Havana, 30 August 2022 — Despite his irrelevance in Cuban public life, it was the president himself who announced on Tuesday the death of Camilo Guevara March, one of the sons of Ernesto Che Guevara. “With deep sorrow we say goodbye to Camilo, Che’s son and promoter of his ideas, as director of the … Continue reading “Diaz-Canel Says Goodbye to Camilo Guevara, “Promoter of the Ideas of his Father,” ‘el Che’”
EFE (via 14ymedio), Jorge I. Pérez, Miami, 5 April 2022 — The forced labor camps in which, as in the Soviet gulag, dissidents, religious, homosexuals and artists were confined in the Cuba of the 1960s, left “a lot of pain and trauma” not yet healed, affirms the Cuban historian Abel Sierra Madero, who has just … Continue reading “‘The Body Never Forgets’, an Essay on the Concentration Camps in Cuba”
14ymedio, Madrid, 14 February 2022 — The “Revolutionary Offensive of 1968” has done a lot of damage to the Cuban people, according to Cuban singer-songwriter Silvio Rodríguez, who is once again critical of some aspects of Cuba’s historical and current ruling power in an interview with the Argentine news agency Télam. The troubadour affirms that the US … Continue reading “Silvio Rodriguez Continues With His Very Personal Process of ‘Rectification of Errors’”
14ymedio, Havana, 26 December 2021 – The singer-songwriter Silvio Rodríguez recognized this year, for the first time, that Cuba “could be” a dictatorship. He did not do so on his blog, Segunda Cita – where he makes room for different but monotonous voices, all pro-government – but in a Chilean magazine, Culto, in an interview that was later reproduced by … Continue reading “Silvio Rodriguez, in Ambiguity Until the End”
14ymedio, Havana, 17 December 2021 — Cuban troubadour Vicente Feliú died at the age of 74 this Friday in Havana due to a heart attack, according to the official media. The singer-songwriter was performing at the Music Museum when he suffered a medical emergency that he did not survive, sources close to the artist confirmed … Continue reading “The Official Troubadour Vicente Feliu Dies in Havana”
14ymedio, Luz Escobar, Havana, 8 November 2021 — For more than half an hour, the students of the José Luis Arruñada school, in Havana, waited standing in the courtyard for the activity to begin to mark the restart of the 2020-2021 school year. Already at the parents’ meeting, held last week, the teachers had informed everyone that … Continue reading “A Harangue Against July 11 (11J) to Start the School Year in Havana”
14ymedio, Carlos Alberto Montaner, Miami, 30 October 2021 — The Cuban march on November 15 has been called by Archipiélago. This group is not a political party and does not intend to replace the communists in the country’s leadership. It takes its name from diversity. It is not true that Cuba is only an island. It … Continue reading “Cuba: The End of the Party”
14ymedio, Luz Escobar, Havana, 15 December 2020 — State Security continues its harassment against activists and artists who were housed at the headquarters of the San Isidro Movement. One day after Carlos Manuel Álvarez was arrested when he left his family’s house in Cárdenas, Matanzas, and was interrogated for six hours, Katherine Bisquet denounced the organization … Continue reading “Cuban Police Committed to Supporting Acts of Repudiation Against Artists”
Abel Sierra Madero, Hypermedia Magazine, 15 May 2020 — Yuri Brokhin, a Soviet filmmaker who defected in 1972 and settled in the United States, described his experience trying to purchase a Volga automobile in the late 1960s. In all of Voroshilovgrad, Ukraine, there were only twelve of these cars available for sale to the public, … Continue reading “From the Gulag to the UMAP: Official History and the Control of Memory”
Yolanda Huerga (Radio Televisión Martí), April, 19, 2020 — It’s been 17 years since that April 19 when a group of Cuban artists and writers signed a letter supporting the imprisonment of 75 dissidents, the execution of three young men and life sentences for the other four, after they hijacked a boat with the intention … Continue reading “When The Intellectuals Supported “The Terror Of Castrismo.” Seventeen Years After The “Message From Havana.””
