English Translations of Cubans Writing From the Island
14ymedio, Xavier Carbonell, Salamanca, 19 November 2023 — As with almost everything deep or interesting in Mexico, very few young readers in my country know Jorge Ibargüengoitia. Don’t panic: the cult of the writer with an arduous surname – which no one forgets to mention, and neither do I – died along with 180 other … Continue reading “To Sleep in Havana and Wake Up in Moscow”
14ymedio, Yunior García Aguilera, Madrid, 12 June 2023 — At the recent Madrid Book Fair, they read out a manifesto: Literature, always on the side of freedom. The regime in Havana, always quick with a smart answer, put out a riposte in the name of Casa de las Americas, with the title: On the side … Continue reading “Now Havana Wants to be Dulcinea”
14ymedio, Xavier Carbonell, Salamanca, 9 April 2023 – The apathy of Cuban intellectuals after the death of Jorge Edwards contributed to the fact that the regime’s censorship managed to render him invisible. The machinery of the Cuban press lives by a certain law of fiction, and that fiction selects, redacts, patches over and twists the … Continue reading “Jorge Edwards in Cuba: A Spy in the Land of Slogans”
14ymedio, Xavier Carbonell, Salamanca, 4 December 2022 – A colleague of mine went to Lanzarote – the most eastern island of the Canaries archipelago – and on her return she sent me some photos of the house where José Saramago lived. I’ve always been an admirer of the Portuguese writer, famous for his large spectacles, … Continue reading “Saramago’s Havana Book”
14ymedio, Havana, 2 December 2022 — Cuban actress and teacher Herminia Sánchez Quintana, National Theater Award winner in 2019, died this Thursday in Havana at the age of 99. Her imprint on the island’s dramaturgy, cinema, radio and television accredits her as one of the most notable faces of the Cuban scene. Born in Barcelona in 1923, … Continue reading “About to Turn 100, Cuban Actress and Playwright Herminia Sanchez Dies”
14ymedio, Madrid, October 3, 2022–Amid the restlessness and hardship which has settled in the streets of the Island, the Cuban government has put in motion the communications machinery to regain political and social ground, not just within Cuba, but also abroad. It took the most ideologically forward step on Sunday publishing a declaration by Casa … Continue reading “Officials are Losing the Public Relations Battle in Cuba”
14ymedio, Xavier Carbonell, Salamanca, 21 August 2022 — In order to “stir up the anthill,” on the 45th anniversary of the death of Cuban writer José Lezama Lima (1910-1976), last Sunday the filmmaker Ernesto Fundora, at the Rosario Castellanos Bookstore of the Fund for Economic Culture, in Mexico City, screened his documentary “Lezama Lima: Soltar la … Continue reading “A Documentary Rescues the Writer Lezama Lima from the Clutches of the Cuban Regime”
EFE (via 14ymedio), Jorge I. Pérez, Miami, 25 August 2022 — The PEN Club of Cuban Writers in Exile, a subsidiary of PEN International, celebrates its 25th anniversary this Saturday with a new book about its history and the “stigma” of being a “political organization” financed by the United States, something that according to its … Continue reading “Cuban Writers in Exile Celebrate Their 25th Anniversary with PEN International”
By Carlos Manuel Álvarez, published in Univision News, 19 May 2016 Published in Malaletra, a Blog Made in Cuba, Regina Coyula, 11 July 2016 He looks like a god but is a heretic. He seems carved in stone, but is a nervous wreck. He looks like the first among men, but is just the last … Continue reading “The Reclusive Poet / Carlos Manuel Alvarez, Regina Coyula”
14ymedio, Havana, 5 April 2022 — The Cuban film writer and screenwriter Ambrosio Fornet Frutos died this Tuesday at the age of 90, the Casa de las Américas reported on its social networks. “His work constitutes a fundamental part of the nation’s culture, which he always defended,” the institution wrote, recalling that the intellectual was “one of its … Continue reading “Cuban Intellectual Ambrosio Fornet, Who Baptized the’Five Gray Years’, Dies”
14ymedio, Havana, 17 December 2021 — Cuban troubadour Vicente Feliú died at the age of 74 this Friday in Havana due to a heart attack, according to the official media. The singer-songwriter was performing at the Music Museum when he suffered a medical emergency that he did not survive, sources close to the artist confirmed … Continue reading “The Official Troubadour Vicente Feliu Dies in Havana”
14ymedio, Julio Llopiz-Casal, Havana, 1 November 2021 — Me, I like to run away from common places (because what I want is to be happy and to not be pedantic), an idea has come to mind. The most interesting artist of the 60s and 70s in Cuba is not Umberto Peña, it is not Servando Cabrera … Continue reading “My No to the Havana Biennial is for the Freedom of Luisma and All Cubans”
14ymedio, Yaiza Santos, Madrid, July 31, 2021 — The singer, composer and music producer Pavel Urkiza was born in Kiev (Ukraine), but right away, when he was three months old, he was taken to Havana where he grew up. His parents, both engineers, were part of the first Cuban student brigade in the Soviet Union. … Continue reading “The Change in Cuba Has No Turning Back”
14ymedio, Luz Escobar, Havana, 7 December 2020 — Actor Reinier Díaz and some other artists who attended last Saturday’s meeting with officials from the Ministry of Culture deny the interpretation that the official press is giving of what happened at the Abelardo Estorino theater. There were forceful interventions in favor of the San Isidro Movement and … Continue reading “‘The Counterrevolution Sneaked Into the Fabric of the Culture’, Complains Abel Prieto”
14ymedio, Yoani Sánchez, Havana, 28 November 2020 – Sometimes in the dark, or with only the beams of mobile phones lighting their faces, hundreds of artists have planted themselves in front of the Ministry of Culture in Havana, until the early morning hours this Saturday. The peaceful protest marks a necessary precedent with unpredictable consequences … Continue reading “And the Spark Ignited…”