English Translations of Cubans Writing From the Island
14ymedio, Yoani Sanchez, Generation 7, Havana, 8 November 2018 – The distance between them is a hundred yards and an abyss. The restaurant in the mansion at 3rd and 8th in Havana’s Miramar district is very close to a place privately run by self-employed workers. Both serve food, both are located in beautiful buildings with columns … Continue reading “Private Versus State, Novelties and Fossils”
14ymedio, Yoani Sanchez, Havana, 5 November 2018 – A cart is being unloaded at the butcher’s in Havana’s Carlos III Plaza. The crowd throws itself on it. There are shouts, shoves and occasional blows while two men grab several boxes of frozen chicken shouting, “This is mine!” It’s Tuesday and just a couple days since … Continue reading “Weapons for What?”
14ymedio, Yoani Sanchez, Havana, 16 October 2018 — The first months in the highest office of the nation have been frantic for Miguel Diaz-Canel. We have seen him touring industrial zones, visiting several provinces, dancing in New York and even establishing a Twitter account. All these actions are aimed at creating an image of a modern president … Continue reading “Díaz-Canel and the Mask of the Modern President”
14ymedio, Yoani Sanchez, Havana, 15 September 2018 — A quarter of a century ago, when I met Reinaldo Escobar, there were at least two obsessions around which his life revolved. The first was to try to continue doing journalism despite having been expelled from the official media, and the other was this novel, a biographical exorcism that … Continue reading “Prologue to “La Grieta””
14ymedio, Generation Y, Yoani Sanchez, Havana, 15 August 2018 — A young woman was talking on the phone in a café when someone at the next table overheard the conversation. In a few minutes everyone in the place had their eyes glued to their cellphones to test the mobile internet they’d heard about in that private … Continue reading “A Discreet Test of Internet for Mobile Phones Unleashes Frustrations”
14ymedio, Generation Y, Yoani Sanchez, Bogota/Havana — Flight 254 climbs over Bogota on a cold, gray morning. Inside the plane members of the Cuban delegation is traveling back to Havana, after participating in the Central American and Caribbean Games held in Barranquilla, Colombia. For more than three hours, the restless athletes fill their area of the craft … Continue reading “Athletes and Air Conditioners”
14ymedio, Generation Y, Yoani Sanchez, Havana, 21 July 2018 — A small insect falls on they keyboard of my laptop, a few minutes later there’s another one while a third lands on my neck. A few yards away, a well-known filmmaker tries to block the sun shining on his screen and a lady screams some … Continue reading “The Country of ‘Wificulties’”
14ymedio, Reinaldo Escobar, Havana/Santa Clara | 26 June 2018 — Gloria Peralta has been sitting at the door of an old house with a gabled roof for at least two hours waiting for an onion seller to pass by to “give some flavor to the beans,” but the floods caused by the rains of tropical storm Alberto have … Continue reading “Keys to Survival in Cuba: The Ration Book, Remittances and Theft”
14ymedio, Generation Y, Yoani Sanchez, Havana, 19 May 2018 – The tragic images are hypnotic. Across a swath of agricultural land near Havana’s José Martí International Airport are scattered the remains of what, a few minutes earlier, was an airplane filled with 110 people traveling from the Cuban capital to the eastern province of Holguin. … Continue reading “We Ask For Transparency in Investigation of Tragic Plane Crash”
14ymedio, Yoani Sanchez, Havana, 22 April 2018 – One impulsive and the other pragmatic, one charismatic and the other lacking any magnetism, the brothers Fidel and Raúl Castro have left their surname branded in blood and fire on the history of Cuba of the last sixty years. This week the generational relay knocks on the door … Continue reading “Goodbye to the Castros”
EFE, via 14ymedio, Havana, 18 April 2018 — Miguel Diaz-Canel, Raúl Castro’s disciplined pupil, prepares to enter Cuban history books as the first president of post-Castroism, after a career forged from the base of the Communist Party, amidst unknowns regarding how he will pilot the new era that opens on the Island. The name of … Continue reading “Díaz-Canel, Raúl Castro’s Disciplined Pupil Who Will Pilot Post-Castroism”
14ymedio, Generation Y, Yoani Sanchez, 17 April 2018 — My mother was born under the Castro regime, I was born under the Castro regime and my son was born under the Castro regime. At least three generations of Cubans have lived only under the leadership of two men with the same surname. That uniformity is about to … Continue reading “Havana, Year Zero”
14ymedio, Generation Y, Yoani Sanchez, 16 April 2018 — The echoes of the recently concluded Summit of the Americas are beginning to fade. The event that summoned most of the presidents of the region and served as a framework for various social forums is a thing of the past. However, the images of the deplorable performance of … Continue reading “An Embarrassment”
14ymedio, Havana, 1 April 2018 — ‘FactorUV’ does not like his name spoken and prefers the pseudonym for which he is known in Cuban digital networks. He is 21 and has been glued to a computer screen since he was a child, although he lives in a country with one of the lowest Internet connectivity rates on … Continue reading “Despite the Government and Censorship, Cubans ’Resolve’ the Internet”
14ymedio, Yoani Sanchez, Havana, 28 March 2018 – United by the slave trade and, later, by geopolitics, Angola and Cuba are today experiencing a similar moment beyond cultural ties or military pacts. Both countries are going through a process of succession from the historic leadership, which, in the case of Luanda, is defying more than … Continue reading “Lessons From A Planned Succession: Angola and Cuba”
