English Translations of Cubans Writing From the Island
If, like 22-year-old Yoan, you consider it a priority to dress in the style of a male fashion model and you spend all your spare time in the gym sculpting your body, then the bill could exceed your income. Yoan maintains a lifestyle similar to an average middle-class guy in any developed country thanks to … Continue reading “Fashion and Reality in Cuba / Ivan Garcia”
Six months ago I took an American photographer to meet to the former model and ex-ballerina Luz Maria Collazo. She had served as an interpreter with two other important Cuban ex-models and that would be our last evening of work. She was the main target of his lens and his interest, but when he saw … Continue reading “The Best Art School in the World / Yusimi Rodriguez Lopez”
HAVANA, Cuba, October 2013, www.cubanet.org – Amid the ruins, the people living in No. 216 Tulipan, in El Cerro, are convinced they inhabit the same house where Manuel Sanguily lived. “Sanguily lived here. On the terrace he had coffee with Maceo,” they’re heard to say, excited. Beyond the myth or the truth, the house is falling … Continue reading “Sanguily! Get Me Out of These Ruins! / Lilianne Ruiz”
Cubanet interviewed Eliezer Avila, the computer scientist who once faced Ricardo Alarcon, former president of the National Assembly. He moved to the capital in order to participate more directly in the changes in civil society. What have you been doing in your public life lately? Since I arrived in Europe I have focused on my … Continue reading “Eliezer Avila Commits to a Green Party / Lilianne Ruiz”
Photo from paraclito.net I met Oscar Espinosa Chepe† at the home of another opposition activist around the year 1997. Later, I had the opportunity to interact more with him when he would go to the headquarters of CubaPress, then situated in the residence of Ricardo González Alfonso, in Havana’s Miramar neighborhood, so that the editor … Continue reading “Oscar in Memoriam / Rosa Maria Rodriguez”
HAVANA, Cuba, September, www.cubanet.org – I met Oscar Espinosa Chepe in 2002, at the home of the poet and independent journalist Ricardo González Alfonso, an ideal place to establish good and lasting friendships. Between dreams and fears, we worked on the magazine De Cuba. I remember the first collaboration Chepe sent to us for the … Continue reading “Chepe / Luis Cino Alvarez”
While in Sao Paulo and other cities in Brazil the outraged people flooded the streets to protest the increase in transportation prices, rampant corruption and the millions in public expenditures for the World Cup and the Olympic Games, in Cuba the men garbed in olive-green govern at their pleasure, supported by a hard autocratic staff … Continue reading “The Kindness of the Cuban Aristocracy? / Ivan Garcia”
In the 1950’s there were two hotels out of their league: the Hotel National in Havana and the Hotel International in Varadero. The first one is still standing in the heart of Vedado, the second one will be demolished. This was just confirmed by Jorge Alvarez, Director of Center of Inspection and Environmental Control. This … Continue reading “The Hotel International in Varadero will be Demolished / Ivan Garcia”
To the wall! To the wall!* HAVANA, Cuba, March, www.cubanet.org – Luis Cino Alvarez – A worthy poet who has known how to confront decades of ostracism, Rafael Alcides, wrote, “Regrets and hopes for a new jailed writer.” After the letter by Alcides, email notes of support signed by various writers in favor of … Continue reading “Selective Ignorance: The Women Writers of UNEAC / Luis Cino Alvarez, Angel Santiesteban”
According to the government, there are 47,000 medical students in Cuba, and a doctor for every 137 persons. What is the real picture on the national health service? The popular Cuban refrain, when referring to the contradiction which presents itself when the person producing something hasn’t got that thing in his own home, employs the … Continue reading “Exporting Doctors / Orlando Freire Santana”
Poor little doll made of tinsel and wood, so battered across the long and narrow stretch of thousands and thousands of kilometers. Last night, I saw her in Lawton, and it was daunting. Because of her, and because of the bleak surroundings. A neighborhood polluted from the disposition of its inhabitants to the sky that … Continue reading “Who Are You, Little Virgin? / Orlando Luis Pardo Lazo”
A couple days ago two neighbors were talking outside my house about the notice published in the newspaper Granma, official organ of the Communist Party. I don’t know what the news was, but one said to the other, “It came out in Granma, I read it,” as proof of veracity. The other responded, “I don’t … Continue reading “Uninformed or Poor? / Yusimi Rodriguez Lopez”
Statement to readers About the Petition for Review of the Trial against Angel Santiesteban Prats. A few hours after the official web page STATE OF SATS published the post “Justice for Angel Santiesteban Prats,” in which it was officially reported that the petition for review of the trial by which the said writer had been … Continue reading “Official Statement about the Petition for Review of the Trial Against Angel Santiesteban Prats”
Requested review of the trial against the dissident writer Angel Santiesteban Prats, we make available the documents from the same. At a month after the presentation of the review of the trial against Angel Santiesteban Prats, last July 4, not only has no judicial reply been received about it, but, as is already public knowledge, … Continue reading “New Challenge for the Cuban Judicial System. Documents from the Trial against Angel Santiesteban”
Image taken from Miscelaneas de Cuba (A version of this article was originally published in Cubanet [and is translated here]) The exclusive news was first offered by Cuban TV’s Havana Channel, in an evening program on Wednesday July 31, 2013: six people had died and 40 remained hospitalized due to ingestion of methyl alcohol (wood … Continue reading “Alcoholism, Corruption and Other Demons…”
