English Translations of Cubans Writing From the Island
[Title]Would this be the T-shirt that could resolve the problem? [T-Shirt text”] Police and National Guard: I do not support AT ALL these T-Shirts that say that THIS REVOLUTION IS SHIT, and what’s more, I think they’re horrible, OK?” ARTURO, THE BRIGHTEST STAR At the launch of the magazine Criterios number 37, on February 28 … Continue reading “The Public Sphere In Cuba, Without the Public / Orlando Luis Pardo Lazo”
The recent Congress of the CCP, with all its greyness and its whiff of pre-epitaph – since it is probably “the last” where the so-called historical generation will be in attendance — has clearly demonstrated some issues that, until now, were cause for speculation among the Cuban reality analysts: behind the charade reform of the … Continue reading “What is Real, Possible and Desirable / Miriam Celaya”
On December 31, precisely at midnight, a waterfall poured from every balcony of my Yugoslav-style building. Cubans keep the tradition of throwing a bucket of water at year’s end to clean all the bad brought by previous months and to spiritually “clean” the January about to begin. This year there were infinite reasons to throw … Continue reading “The Buried Revolution / Yoani Sánchez”
Last week I participated in an exceptional experience. For two days I spoke on camera for the fictionalized documentary Trocadero 162, Bajos, by director Tomas Piard, about the last years of Jose Lezama Lima: his final ostracism when the doors on the island were closed to him; his resistance to the Cuban vacuum, until he … Continue reading “Open Letter to the World (Excepting Abel Prieto, Cuban Minister of Culture) / Orlando Luis Pardo Lazo”
What normally happens when a common citizen is at fault for an act of social significance? He is made to pay for his mistake, and in many ways, with a wide range of penalties; depending on the magnitude of his act, it can range from a simple reproach, to deprivation of liberty. But in certain … Continue reading “The Mea Culpa of the Powerful / Ernesto Morales Licea”
The calendar displays May 20, 2010. It’s half past ten in the morning. In my hometown of Bayamo it’s another hot muggy day that makes foreheads sweat and engenders moods very close to irritation. But that’s outside, in the unsheltered streets. In this office with its inlaid walls where I am now, an air conditioner … Continue reading “The Happiness of the Long Distance Runner”
By Sindo Pacheco Berto Meciar was rocking in his armchair, as he had been doing every night for the last twenty years, when he saw the drunkard who turned in front of his house, lurching from one side to the other. Only then did he remember the hole. That piece of the rarely traveled road … Continue reading “The story of the hole”