English Translations of Cubans Writing From the Island
Interview of Salvador Bueno (fragment*) I met him in 1998. That year, on October 12, he received the “José Vasconcelos” prize in a ceremony at the National Hotel in Havana. The gold medal, conferred by the Hispanic Affirmation Front (HAF) to intellectuals of the Castillian language for lifetime achievement, had already gone to figures of … Continue reading “Salvador, a Seat Occupied in Cuban Literature / Francis Sánchez”
My name has been printed in a filthy little “Incident Book” at the Muelle dock for the Regla ferry. While still at home I felt this strange hyper-attentiveness to some details, which always ends in finding out it was intuition, and meanwhile in my backpack I had some big scissors, the kind used to cut … Continue reading “The Paranoia of the State / Lilianne Ruíz”
The situation in which we live incites violence in many ways, and we must not allow ourselves to provoke it. Not only because they have the weapons and the power to annihilate any popular uprising, but also because we do not have to be like them, the men and women who have managed to free … Continue reading “Spring for Cuba / Lilianne Ruíz”
Havana has carried out a process of appropriation of post-Marxist nationalism, through a nearly mystic cult of the figure Jose Marti, at the same time attempting the depoliticization of writers and artists. The mechanism of terror employed by a dictatorship fails only with one social group: the intellectuals. It’s not necessarily that the intellectuals are … Continue reading “Praise for the Cowardly / Wendy Iriepa and Ignacio Estrada”
More than two decades after the postmortem repair of the literary legacy of Virgilio Piñera (Cardenas-Havana, August 4, 1912 – October 18, 1979), most people who speak of the author have barely read his stories, poems, essays, dramas and tragedies. What are they talking about then? His homosexuality and aspects of his personality such as … Continue reading “Theatrical Virgilio / Miguel Iturria Savón”
Although the organizers of The Book Fair of Havana, held from February 9 to 19 in the old fortress of La Cabaña, sent the texts to the provincial bookstores where they will continue the sales and presentations, the event is now part of the past because the capital’s publishers finalized their rituals of promotion and … Continue reading “Goodbye to the 2012 Book Fair / Miguel Iturria Savón”
From very young age I liked to read novels of manners. The genre, of one form or another, most intellectual or popular, in the eighteenth century was seen in the work of the historian José Martín Félix de Arrate, in the nineteenth century of Luis Victorian Betancourt and in the twentieth century in the work … Continue reading “Chronicles of Customs / Fernando Dámaso”
On November 6, 2008, published my first digital article on the site Kaosenlared (Chaos on the Web). Three months earlier I had graduated in journalist at the University of the Oriente, did not have this blog, and was about to begin working at the radio station where I would be located during my Social Service. … Continue reading “My Article about Eliécer Avila… Three Years Later / Ernesto Morales Licea”
With the Gala of the National Ballet of Cuba for the 80th anniversary of Alicia Alonso’s stage debut on Thursday, December 29, and the presentation of the Nutcracker on Sunday, December 1, the Gran Teatro of Havana closed its 2011 season and inaugurated its 2012 programming. The super spectacle of Thursday was the touchstone of … Continue reading “The Celebration of Alicia / Miguel Iturria Savón”
THE DAWN* OF WAITING Orlando Luis Pardo Lazo José Lezama Lima waited for the death of his mother before feeling guilt-free enough to publish the scandalous Paradiso. Virgilio Piñera waited to amass 18 boxes of unedited material before letting himself die of loneliness or of State Security. Dulce María Loynaz sat down, like a character … Continue reading “WWWAITING FOR THE WWWORMS / Orlando Luis Pardo Lazo”
THE NIGHT OF THE BOOKS Orlando Luis Pardo Lazo That propagandist title has always seemed a little terrifying to me: The Night of the Books… It sounds as if the sun had set for books, as if brightness and clarity had disappeared, as if we had come across literary darkness and the letters had to … Continue reading “BOOKONEANDO… / Orlando Luis Pardo Lazo”
[I have decided to publish, before this blog is closed down, some texts that I didn’t publish at the time because it was practically impossible to do it because of obvious difficulties or because as time passed I doubted that it would be the best idea. Due to recent events, I think it is best … Continue reading “Closed by Demolition / Francis Sánchez”
Of Militants and Queers Orlando Luis Pardo Lazo …s they have tried to call it. They weren’t “five gray years.” Much less a “black decade.” The ‘70s were the splendor, the Cuban Revolution’s era of luxury. The ‘70s are and will be the crystal clear incarnation of the world totalitarian utopia, the twentieth century ideal. … Continue reading “ISLAND STASIOLOGY / Orlando Luis Pardo Lazo”
TOMÁS PIARD: Y OLPL DÓNDE ESTÁ…???!!!, originally uploaded by orlandoluispardolazo. Finally, the half-hidden premiere of the documentary “Trocadero 162, Lower Floor” by Tomas Piard (which should have been released on December 19, 2010 for Jose Lezama Lima’s centenary), where Abel Prieto, the Minister of Culture, cowered in my presence and my words in almost a … Continue reading “TOMAS PIARD: AND WHERE IS OLPL…???!!! / Orlando Luis Pardo Lazo”
It’s beautiful to sit in front of the TV and contemplate the end of the Revolution. “Cuba’s Reasons,” they call it on Monday nights, this material clearly anonymous. My blog, which appeared for the first time on the small screen, is also called Monday. Post-Revolution Mondays. A slightly obsolete title. The Revolution is no longer … Continue reading “WEBDITORIAL / Orlando Luis Pardo Lazo”