English Translations of Cubans Writing From the Island
14ymedio, Zunilda Mata, Havana, 3 January 2018 — The controversy broke out after the publication of the 2018 Letter of the Year. The series of predictions — provided every January by the priests of the Yoruba religion — has raised a cloud of criticism expressed in calls to “not conspire” and to respect authority, something that … Continue reading “’Letter of the Year’ Sets Off Controversy Among Cuba’s Babalaos”
14ymedio, Generation Y, Yoani Sanchez, Havana, 4 January 2016 — I was ten years old when Fidel Castro launched the economic battle he called the “Rectification of errors and negative tendencies.” The Maximum Leader’s rage fell, at that time, on private farmers and on the intermediaries who marketed their products. Cuatro Caminos Plaza in Havana, … Continue reading “The Deadly Kiss of Price Controls / 14ymedio, Yoani Sanchez”
HAVANA, Cuba, Novemer 2013, www.cubanet.org — Back then there were images of abundance. Our elders say it was a gift to the senses. Memory arouses a nostalgia for a kind of lost paradise. El Mercado Único. Amelia, 80 years old. “It was quite a city, quite a city. It was cheap, cheap… All the fruits and … Continue reading “The Market Where Cubans Pray for Renewed Abundance / Lilianne Ruiz”
I leaned against the window carefully. The glass had a crack running through it and with each jolt it seemed likely to shatter. A few minutes, a roadway traversed by collective taxis, an arithmetic exercise: count all the people on the street who were smiling. In the first stretch, between Rancho Boyeros Avenue and the … Continue reading “Humor as Exorcism / Yoani Sanchez”
UMAP: Citizens’ force used for the good of society. Brilliant initiative of military cadres. A common school, half in ruins, half with children in uniform, with its Cuban flag and signs on the walls. The boys talk among themselves, then look with curiosity at the stranger, who takes photos of enormous homeless sites behind the … Continue reading “Of UMAP* and Other Demons / Henry Constantin”
My travels to Najasa — southeast of Camaguey — were marked by my first impressions on arriving. The first time, I was amazed at the hills with cliffs that followed the highway from Cuatro Caminos — the sunny capital — to Manolin, as if the truck had come from Camaguey to bring the mountains of … Continue reading “Najasa Votes Against Itself / Henry Constantin”
She said it with a tone somewhere between surprise and disappointment: “They don’t give a damn, Ernesto. How mistaken we exiles are.” And I nodded because I knew too well what she was talking about. For her, a woman from Santiago who hadn’t stepped foot on her native land since 1999, living in Miami and … Continue reading “The Winners’ Trophy / Ernesto Morales Licea”
14ymedio, Marcelo Hernandez, Havana, 14 January 2019 — The lack of goods in Cuban agricultural markets after the year-end celebrations is almost a Christmas tradition, but this time, the recovery is slow in coming. The Ejército Juvenil del Trabajo (EJT / Youth Labor Army) market on 17th Street in El Vedado is one of more … Continue reading “Cuba’s Agricultural Markets Can’t Keep Up After the End of the Year”
