English Translations of Cubans Writing From the Island
In Havana, the good medical specialists always have at hand two kinds of treatment for their patients. “If it is a person with family abroad or of high purchasing power, I propose that he go to the international pharmacy to buy the medications in foreign currency because they are of higher quality and more effective. … Continue reading “Cuba: The Tricks of the Embargo / Ivan Garcia”
One of the central figures of the Cuban opposition, who participated in the revolution before its ultimate victory but ended up being sentenced to 20 years in Castro’s prisons, was the independent economist Oscar Espinosa Chepe, who died in Madrid. He recounts his life and ideas in this interview. Born in Cienfuegos on November 29, … Continue reading ““I Always Did What My Conscience Dictated” / Dimas Castellano, Oscar Espinosa Chepe”
Eight in the morning. On the ground floor of the Focsa building – Cuba’s Empire State – on M between 17 and 19 Vedado, in a shop between the Guiñol theatre and a beaten-up bar at the entrance to the Scherezada club, a queue of about 15 people are waiting to enter the internet room. … Continue reading “Internet in Cuba: A Success in Spite of Everything / Ivan Garcia”
I thank Neo Club Editions, Armando Anel and Idabell, his wife; Barcardi House of the University of Miami and the Institute of Cuban and Cuban-American Studies, and the Alexandria Library for the opportunity to present this excellent novel by Angel Santiesteban Prats, The Summer that God Slept, winner of the Franz Kafka literary prize, Novels … Continue reading “Carolos Alberto Montaner: Someday God Will Awaken / Angel Santiesteban”
Editor’s note: As this letter is the source of much discussion and debate, we are providing an easily accessible copy (that you don’t have to download), for our readers’ convenience. May 19, 2014 Dear Mr. President, Your administration has taken several important steps to support the Cuban people by opening travel for Cuban-American families, expanding … Continue reading “Open Letter to President Obama on Cuba: Support Civil Society in Cuba”
We left very early from Miami, a name which in the Tequesta language of its original inhabitants means “Place of Many Waters.” My friend, her daughter and I were headed to Key West. The trip was surprisingly fast thanks to the wonderfully maintained freeways. We made our first stop at Islamorada to have lunch at … Continue reading “Another Dream Come True / Rebeca Monzo”
HAVANA, Cuba. — Roberto Pupo Tejeda, sacristan of the Catholic Church, was arrested and mistreated by officials of the State Security Department (DSE). “I was in the Church participating in the Sunday Mass, and I went out to observe the walk of the Ladies (in White),” said Pupo Tejeda, referring to the customary walk that … Continue reading “Sacristan Arrested for Protecting Ladies in White / Calixto R. Martinez Arias”
Cuba is not the same as 40 years ago, but its leaders are the same HAVANA, Cuba, February — Cuba intervened militarily in Angola on the side of the MPLA in August of 1975. In 1977 Revolutionary Armed Forces (FAR) supported the government of Agostino Neto in order to suppress by blood and fire an … Continue reading “Venezuela is not Angola / Camilo Ernesto Olivera Peidro”
Before the olive-green autocracy designed economic reforms, the peaceful, illegal opposition was demanding opportunities in small businesses and in the agricultural sector as well as repeal of the absurd apartheid in the tourist, information and technology spheres that turned the Cuban into a third class citizen. General Raul Castro and his entourage of technocrats headed … Continue reading “The Silent Successes of the Cuban Dissidence / Ivan Garcia”
Plaza de la Catedral, festooned for the Year End Grand Dinner and which some new Cuban rich must have attended. *See below for dinner menu. They are not as ostentatious as the new Russian rich who buy compulsively and empty the shelves of Marbella. Nor do their lifestyle and expenses have to do with a … Continue reading “The New Cuban Rich / Ivan Garcia”
There’s a green robot with antennae everywhere you look. In the mobile phone repairers’ ads, on certain nice T-shirts, and even staring at us from the windshields of some cars. Not only does the Android app show up in many places in Cuba, the Google operating system has also grown in popularity over the last … Continue reading “The Ten Most Popular Android Apps in Cuba / Yoani Sanchez”
Havana, Cuba, December, www.cubanet.org — It was after 10 am Saturday, December 7. The patrol car of the PNR (National Revolutionary Police) braked at my side, a few meters from where I live. The uniformed officers got out of the car, and one of them asked me for my identity card. With no further explanation, … Continue reading “The Sats Refugees / Camilo Ernesto Olivera”
The image of the island has been abused in our national imagination. The island as isolation, as continental abandonment, as lyrical gentleness, as the least firm of the earth, as origin and teleology, as unsinkable (unbearable) cork, as poetic cause of the measure of all things. Cuba can be this and much more, surely. But … Continue reading “Images of the Day Before / Orlando Luis Pardo Lazo”
From Julian del Casal (1863-1893) all he kept was the winterphilia. Weekly chronicles long for months of Cuban winter so the pleasure of silence can reign supreme on streets which would barely feel like Havana after twilight: […] would that snow would begin to fall so tree rings and white caps on evergreen mountains would … Continue reading “NADAVIDADES (Nada Christmas) / Orlando Luis Pardo Lazo”
Never before have Cuban dissidents had it so easy. Fifteen or twenty years ago publishing a political document was a sure path to jail. If you were an intellectual — I can recall professor Ricardo Boffill, the writer and poet Raul Rivero and the poet María Elena Cruz Valera — it was not enough for them just … Continue reading “Cuba: Drawing Room Dissidents / Ivan Garcia”
