English Translations of Cubans Writing From the Island
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”
Pinar del Río is a city without movie theaters, an urban place where cars barely pass and at night the streets are dark and empty. However, some personal projects shine in the midst of such paralysis. One of these is Pedro Pablo Oliva’s workshop, with its room halfway between a family home and an art … Continue reading “The Great Alumbrón* / Yoani Sánchez”
José, with his 35 years, dreams of driving a convertible silver Audi. His eyes are open, it was not difficult for him to come back to reality when his fan stopped due to a blackout. The heat of the night activates his brain. He thought of a solution for his existential problems. He wanted to … Continue reading “Costly Dreams / Laritza Diversent”
Dark night, a blackout in the vicinity of the Buena Vista neighborhood in Playa. The dilapidated shared taxi I’m taking stalls, and with an exhausted snort refuses to start again. A passenger and the driver are trying to fix it, while on both sides of the street we see people are sitting outside their houses, … Continue reading “Cubacel, In Bed With The Censorship / Yoani Sánchez”
Right now, many Havana residents are sending up last minute prayers that the hurricane won’t hit the city. The hurricane season, June 1 to November 30 this year, has been gentle with Havana. Thank God. The capital of all Cubans has an infrastructure of tears. The Fourth World. The ancient buildings in the old part … Continue reading “Watercolor of a Havana Autumn / Iván García”
That’s what General Máximo Gómez said about us Cubans, around the year 1890. It’s true, it happens to us all the time. It must be something about the weather, the geography or the racial melting pot. A few years ago (more than a few), I can’t remember when exactly, the Meteorology Institute missed a Hurricane … Continue reading “Always Too Much or Too Little / Rebeca Monzo”
The “blockade,” as the Cuban government calls it, is real. It’s a trade embargo by the United States declared in 1960 and implemented rigorously since 1962. It caused the machinery from American to become scrap metal. Later, the damages were minor. The former Soviet Union connected a pipeline and oil and rubles flowed from Moscow … Continue reading “The Real Embargo / Iván García”
A zinc roof tile flies off, performing an incredible choreography in the air before falling onto the roof of another building. The winds of the tropical storm Paula tore off branches, caused 22 buildings to collapse in Havana, and left us without power for more than a day. On an island accustomed to the passage … Continue reading “A Speech and a Cyclone / Yoani Sánchez”
Some words about the most recent Nobel Prize winner in Literature and the reaction literally in chains from the little Island of the Begrudger… A NOBLE NOBEL Orlando Luis Pardo Lazo I came to Mario Vargas Llosa early in the 90´s (quite late in my life), thanks to a mention of him in a short … Continue reading “Our Vargas Llosa who art in Nobel… / Orlando Luis Pardo Lazo”
Maybe he was surprised that Chavez was defeated in the popular vote. In Havana alarms went off. The unstoppable South American Santa Claus is a very valuable asset for the Cuban political strategy. He is its strong man. He’s also fundamental for supporting an economy that is foundering. The frenzied Chavez offers the oil the … Continue reading “Chavez’s Defeat and the Economic Reforms in Cuba / Iván García”
The literature of Mario Vargas Llosa has been the source of several key turning points in my life. The first was 17 years ago, during a summer marked by blackouts and the economic crisis. With the intention of borrowing The War of the End of the World, I approached a journalist expelled from his profession … Continue reading “Mario Vargas Llosa: A Nobel Long Delayed / Yoani Sánchez”
If we Cubans thought that our hardships and shortages of all kinds had hit bottom, forget it. It is the twentieth anniversary of the most severe and extensive economic crisis that the island suffered in all its history. Those were hard years. Very hard. It is still fresh in my memory. Blackouts of up to … Continue reading “The Special Period Returns”
The government of the Castro brothers has staked everything on one card. That of Hugo Rafael Chávez Frías, the strong man of Venezuela, a walking-talking comic strip, bursting out with some bizarre nonsense every minute. Chávez defies every canon of a balanced, sober and coherent statesman. It could be a bible passage, or he might … Continue reading “Chávez, the Substitute for the Russians?”
Even though Hugo Chavez, its creator, and the Castro brothers are beaming with pride about ALBA*, the free-trade agreement with Venezuela, Bolivia, Ecuador, and Nicaragua, the agreement has insignificant benefits for the people of Cuba. The most notable benefit is that, thanks to the flow of oil that the folkloric President Chavez generously provides us … Continue reading “Dawn* or Darkness?”