English Translations of Cubans Writing From the Island
It is Mayra’s first day on the street. The entire family is glad she is back. The atmosphere is very different from before, when she went to prison. Now her parents do not get upset when her eleven year old son tries to make them laugh with a stories about the comandante. Her mother, with … Continue reading “Self-Portrait of a Hooker* / Iván García”
Cuban society is the crazy punching bag on which the Cuban leaders and the national media train, and sometimes beat up. If there is an epidemic of dengue fever or some other illness it’s the people’s fault because they don’t maintain adequate hygiene in their home and in the city; as if we were responsible … Continue reading “Punching Bag / Rosa Maria Rodriguez Torrado”
The miter leans slightly with the rhythm of the ritual, leaving his back exposed to the stone face of José Martí. On the table of the Mass, the chalice rests and reflects from its golden surface a relief of Che Guevara mounted on the facade of the Ministry of the Interior. Benedict XVI officiates mass … Continue reading “The Papal Mantle and The Red Mass – Reflections on the Pope’s Visit to Cuba / Yoani Sanchez”
By: Yoaxis Marcheco Suarez Two separate power outages last week, one on Monday from early morning until well past noon and the other on Tuesday night occupying the afternoon, made me reflect again on the subject that was so fashionable a few years ago while the eldest in the hierarchy still ruled over us. The … Continue reading “The Energy Regression / Mario Barroso / Yoaxis Marcheco Suarez”
Very few people appreciate the electrical blackouts today the way those of us who live in “deep” Cuba do. From 9:30 PM to 11PM, Radio Marti drops their Nightly Show with the hoarse voice of Margarita Rojo. It is a true exercise of proper fluency, immediacy, and information. It’s a collection of subjects which develop … Continue reading “Moving the Night with Margarita Rojo / Luis Felipe Rojas”
Some might think that luck came to the aid of a beleaguered Fidel Castro, when back in 1998, the island economy was going down with an industry crippled by lack of oil, exports were in the toilet, finances in the red, international debt swelling, and expenditures of billions of dollars to feed 11 million Cubans … Continue reading “Hugo Chavez: Fidel Castro’s Bet / Iván García”
It arrived in March 2006, in a few days before April launched its frenetic downpours against us. It came in a truck, immaculately new, brilliantly useful. It was our electric plant, our own generator, that would run the elevator and the hall lights when the blackouts cast their shadows over our area. We were saved. … Continue reading “The Generator, Our Generator / Yoani Sánchez”
When I was 17, in the midst of blackouts of the “special period”, I found a happiness in my heart. (I know what I’ve said but with a little patience you who read me will see where I’m going with this.) It is only possible to speak of this in a language that resists time. … Continue reading “WORDS AND THINGS / Lilianne Ruíz”
By K. Barth When we thought we had it all resolved and the Bolshevik godfather would guarantee life for ever and ever, the beginning of the end came. The old and apparently well-formed USSR fell apart; that happens with giants with feet of clay. I remember well the day I internalized the collapse of European … Continue reading “STORIES OF THE THOUSAND AND ONE PERIOD, Part One / Mario Barroso”
The authorities in my country are addicted to using general statistical figures to show the success of its economic, political and social model. I refer to the figures that may seem positive, as the negative ones are ignored as nonexistent. The first appear in big headlines, and all around them, is mounted a great media … Continue reading “Don’t Play With The Ticket List / Fernando Dámaso”
The American Gary Marks’s stay in Cuba, from 1998 to 2002, and his contacts with segments of our intelligentsia anchored in everyday survival, sparked the interest of the northern professional in documenting the contrasts. How? Through a DVD documentary about the unbreakable friendship of two artists, one who went rafting to Florida during the mass … Continue reading “Dream Havana / Miguel Iturria Savón”
Knowing how to say no when the opportunity presents itself, no matter the surprise, the gain, or the subsequent costs of the negative, is what differentiates us from prostitutes. My rejection of the regime came to me from an early age, I knew it was the wrong road and that with the Communist System the … Continue reading “Testimony: The Failed Attempts to Make Me an Agent – I / Angel Santiesteban”
In the neighborhood of Cayo Hueso, there are people who are viewed with disdain. Waldo is one such case, chief of surveillance for the Committee for the Defense of the Revolution (CDR). A neighborhood full of prostitutes and marginal people who live from what “falls off” the truck. Due to his intransigence and zeal to … Continue reading “Cuba: Poor but Content / Iván García”
Rafael Alcides collects more than thirty years of yellowing manuscript that he likes to call his originals. In red cardboard folders, they fill a two door cabinet. Eighteen years ago, pregnant with Rafael, (at this point, if readers have not discovered, Alcides is my husband) I found among those old papers a tome that I … Continue reading “Finally, the First Novel of Rafael Alcides / Regina Coyula”
You already see hundreds of stalls selling CDs and videos. Good-natured, calm señoras who offer a wide range of religious articles and, in any Havana doorway, from one day to the next, a snack bar with fast food emerges. When in October 2010 they authorized the expansion of self-employment, people took their time. There were … Continue reading “Private Businesses and Suspicions Flourish in Cuba / Iván García”
