English Translations of Cubans Writing From the Island
In the south of Havana, underneath a burning sun, half a dozen men are working in a precarious workshop making blocks using a machine made up out of odd bits and pieces. It’s hard work. For twelve hours a day they put in cement, stones and clay, filling up a mold which the Frankenstein machine … Continue reading “The Cuban Style of “Dumping” / Ivan Garcia #Cuba”
God willing, before spring of 2013 arrives, Ernesto, thirty-five years old and the owner of a small confectionery business in the Havana neighborhood ofSanto Suárez, will probably be able to travel to Madrid. He will stroll along the Plaza de Cibeles, and buy something in an outlet store or a Chinese street market. And if … Continue reading “After Food, What Most People in Cuba Are Talking About / Ivan Garcia”
It was not only Barack Obama’s supporters in Chicago’s Democratic party circles who celebrated the close victory over his Republican challenger, Mitt Romney,with champagne. Though without as much rejoicing, the club of Communist businessmen, who together control 80% of Cuba’s feeble national economy, probably also spent midnight on November 6 calmly celebrating the Obama victory … Continue reading “Obama’s Victory Shores Up The Cuban Regime / Ivan Garcia”
Cubans get up and go to bed with politics. In Cuba, politics, far from being an exercise of citizenship, is a way of life and a must to get to the Party’s lines. It has always been like this in the past; the only difference is that today’s politics and politicians pull altogether to one … Continue reading “Bad Policy / Mackandal – Manuel Aguirre Lavarrere”
Right now there are two Cubas. The visible, of official gridlock, popular disenchantment, and an unknown future. And that in which what happens in the few spaces in which the regime allows bare-chested debate, and where those who think differently aren’t called “mercenaries”, nor are they accused of being agents of the United States. It … Continue reading “Carlos Saladrigas and the Two Cubas / Iván García”
I have been many Lillis, and all are me, one of those Lillis tried to escape from a confinement to which my mother condemned me, at age 22 at the Fajardo Hospital, really depressed after an abortion and drugged by one Dr. Justo against my will, I jumped without knowing what I was doing from … Continue reading “What Was I Doing Before? / Lilianne Ruíz”
Photo: Francis Sánchez One day I discovered that my wife accused me of attempted murder. She based her accusation on a poem she had found among my unpublished scribbles, where I addressed the dream of a just death that could follow a liberating shot. Carrying forward the tragic event, with the right that attends every … Continue reading “Domestic Violence / Francis Sánchez”
The problem is the street. General Raúl Castro will not permit an Arab Spring in Cuba. He will do whatever needs doing to detain irate opponents. He wants to isolate the potential short-circuit that could turn into a street protest. The island is a petri dish for cultivation of popular anger. The logical erosion of … Continue reading “Cuban Secret Services: Sticks and White Glove / Iván García”
In Cuba, with its pregnant history of violent acts, we pay exaggerated attention to episodes of war in detriment to other ways of making history, such as science–forger of knowledge and of culture–that contributes so much to the formation of nationality the nation and the country over centuries. On May 19 of this year we … Continue reading “Heroes Without Weapons / Dimas Castellanos”
The habaneros were screaming for it. After 9 months of a fierce drought, where water-laden clouds kept moving around the city, and the dams and reservoirs had gone to code red, the rain appeared. Now, when the month of May leaves us, the longed-for spring showers made themselves present. Children and teens in shorts, barefoot … Continue reading “Rain Has Arrived in Havana / Iván García”
In every self-respecting city there is a Chinatown. Havana is one of those. The Chinese are the largest population on the planet. If to the 1.3 billion people living in mainland China we added those scattered around half the world, the figure may exceed 1.5 billion. They arrived in Cuba in the mid 19th century, fleeing … Continue reading “The Chinatown of Havana / Iván García”
On Friday, April 22, on the corner of H and Calzada, Vedado, Havana, I was intercepted at 3:45 p.m. by a Lada car without police plates, from which four plainclothes agents of State Security emerged. Taken by surprise, I tried to ask them for their arrest warrant; meanwhile the leader ordered, “Get in Iturria, your … Continue reading “Chronicle of a Kidnapping in Havana / Miguel Iturria Savón”
On Friday, April 22, at the corner of H and Calzada, in Vedado, Havana, I was intercepted at 3:45 pm by a Lada car without police plates, out of which came four security agents in plain clothes. Surprised, I tried to ask for the warrant; meanwhile the driver commands, “Get in, Iturria your time has … Continue reading “Chronicle of a Kidnapping / Miguel Iturria Savón”
An event of such magnitude always leaves its mark. The death of Orlanado Zapata Tamayo, at the age of 42, is indelibly engraved on my memory. In the afternoon of 23 February 2010 I was at the home of the independent lawyer and journalist Laritza Diversent, reviewing some legal cases which might be of journalistic … Continue reading “The Day Orlando Zapata Died / Iván García”
When in October 1998, Luis Cino, 53, came to the small house belonging to the reporter Mercedes Moreno, an independent journalist who for years worked on Cuban television, he thought twice before knocking on her door. Small, skinny and shy, Cino thought to try his luck as a journalist without a mandate at the agency … Continue reading “Luis Cino, From Dairy Watchman to Story-Teller / Iván García”
