English Translations of Cubans Writing From the Island
Like many Spanish who travel to Cuba, Angela A. F. knows that the inhabitants of this island are immersed in their problems, crammed with hardship and frivolities, on the edge of chaos and alienation. She also knows that friends overseas overestimate the events of this environment. She did not know, however, that by marrying a … Continue reading “State Bureaucracy: Via Matrimonial Ordeal / Miguel Iturría Savón”
I wanted to cancel the SIM card at the business center, located in Miramar. On arriving I found, as usual, a line of people who reflected the exhaustion of such a long wait for service. I asked who was last in line and was directed to the door to ask the doorkeeper if it was … Continue reading “Badly Planned / Anddy Sierra Alvarez”
Not even an enormous Persian magic carpet would be big enough to bring to the Havana Book Fair, running from February 9th to 19th at La Cabaña, a sample of the extensive work of fiction, poetry, essays and historiography of exiled Cuban writers and those excluded from within the island for reasons other than literary. … Continue reading “Absent from the Book Fair / Miguel Iturria Savón”
I’ll never forget when the news came from Radio Marti that we Cubans had a Cardinal. My mother, excited, let me know, and from her tearful eyes came her illusions about the Catholic Church, that had just added to its conclave a high church official. From her hopeless simplicity, my mother intended to convey to me that, hierarchically speaking, “a cardinal is … Continue reading “Catholic Cuba / Angel Santiesteban”
It’s almost like a premonition, but backwards. After ascending a few steps over the heads of the citizens, those who’ve been dismissed by the regime have to walk down the small mountain they though they had climbed. One step forward, and three steps back, or to the side. It’s like a dance, but it’s as … Continue reading “Dismissed / Luis Felipe Rojas”
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”
I did not want to start the New Year like this but Fidel Castro is still present in our lives. That’s just how screwed we are and I fear that will be the case for a long time, even after his demise. It was nearly the end of 2011 when the Ministry of Construction (MICON) … Continue reading “Builder in Chief / Luis Felipe Rojas”
Poor little doll of sticks and tinsel, as she bumps over the length and width of thousands and thousands of kilometers. Last night I saw her, in Lawton. It was overwhelming. For her and for the fading environment. A neighborhood tensed from the spirit of its citizens towards heaven which hovers up there, propped on … Continue reading “The Invisible Little Virgin / Orlando Luis Pardo Lazo”
The last thing able to survive from our Cuban heritage is housing, owing to the totalitarian will of Fidel Castro, who dictated for more than 50 years that everything was his property and only he would decide what was whose and when it stopped being so. Fortunately or unfortunately, the family home was the only thing that couldn’t be sacrificed to survive the … Continue reading “A Little Report about Governmental Fraud / Ángel Santiesteban”
Freedom costs dearly, and it is necessary either to resign yourself to live without it, or to decide to pay the price. José Martí I have always enjoyed running. It is the supreme moment where literary creation, personal desires and political struggle come together (yes, I definitely have to include this when I talk about … Continue reading “Marabana: Tribute to Laura Pollan / Angel Santiesteban”
That the first summit of the “Community of Latin American and Caribbean States,” the newly born CELAC, would be a quaint circus where some of the worst habits of our part of Latin America would be on display was well-known. We didn’t know the dimensions of the tent, the variety of numbers that its protagonists … Continue reading “The Circus is in Town! CELAC is Born / Ernesto Morales Licea”
He’s brought Raul Castro an excellent opportunity to demonstrate the possible honesty of his words. In the handful of years during which he’s been the regent of this feudal family that is the whole Island, the younger of the Castros has never stopped repeating a maxim in his sharp voice and as if it were … Continue reading “The Rebellion of the Righteous / Ernesto Morales Licea”
According to Jonathan Swift, when a true genius appears in the world we can recognize him by a sign: All fools conspire against him. I believe we could easily adapt this maxim – taken from the stupendous novel “A Confederacy of Dunces” by John Kennedy Toole – to another context: When a sensible president appears … Continue reading “Obama, Cuba, and the Confederacy of Dunces / Ernesto Morales Licea”
The other day, watching a triumphalist report on the news about the unrestricted sale of construction materials and under pressure from his wife who has been asking him to build a closet in the bedroom for years, my neighbor Chicho made the trek to the corner of Paseo and 33rd to buy washed sand, gravel, … Continue reading “Sand on Mondays, Gravel on Thursdays / Reinaldo Escobar”
This article will appear in the November print edition of Foreign Policy Magazine, and is available on their website now. At the end of his July 31, 2006, broadcast, the visibly nervous anchor on Cuban Television News announced that there would be a proclamation from Fidel Castro. This was hardly uncommon, and many Cubans no … Continue reading “Country of Old Men / Foreign Policy Magazine / Yoani Sánchez”
