English Translations of Cubans Writing From the Island
In defense of the current Cuban model and its updating within the straitjacket of the so-called Guidelines, some citizens are frightened by the idea of the possible restoration of capitalism in Cuba, mechanically repeating verbally and in writing all the propaganda that has been overwhelmingly spread by the news media. Nobody stops to point out … Continue reading “Don’t Lose Any More Time / Fernando Damaso”
Note: This and other photos in this post are of State Security agents. HAVANA, Cuba, June 2013, Lilianne Ruiz, www.cubanet.org — On every street in Cuba there are so-called “revolutionary vigilantes,” people who work independently for the Committees for the Defense of the Revolution (CDR). They meet periodically with an official from the State Security … Continue reading ““The Lives of Others” Cuban Version / Lilianne Ruiz”
News on Mondays tends to be unflattering, and that is why, instead of writing a story, I would rather share a gossip, which if it doesn’t get you informed will entertain you. So I risk it. You may surely remember the spell of that magician who at the Pioneer parties, amid the heat of a … Continue reading “From La Finca, the Spy Asks for More / Juan Juan Almeida”
From Sampsonia Way Magazine. Since the end of the 1980s, Ángel Santiesteban has been known as one of the most brilliant writers of his generation. In this position he touches upon subjects that are pretty uncomfortable for Cuban political culture: The island’s military interference in Angola and Ethiopia, the genocide of people fleeing towards liberty … Continue reading “The Son that Nobody Wanted / Orlando Luis Pardo Lazo”
CLICK HERE TO HELP FUND THE MOVIE!!!!! Cuba’s Blue Heart courts Indiegogo 5 July, 2013 | By Jeremy Kay The sci-fi thriller has become the first Cuban project to use the crowd-funding platform as the director and producer launch their fundraising campaign. Director Miguel Coyula, whose credits include Red Cockroaches and Memories Of Overdevelopment, and … Continue reading “You can fund “Blue Heart” at Indigogo… GO NOW! / Miguel Coyula”
Spies have always existed; what would secret services be without agents within the mafias? The terrorist gangs? The narco-guerrillas? The bank robbers and other groups who violate social norms and impose their interests on people and institutions? Don’t they watch governments and their ministers and generals? Doesn’t espionage exist between political parties? Does anyone believe … Continue reading “Saving Agent Snowden? / Miguel Iturria Savon”
Days in Queens The bang-bang of the trains is permanent on Roosevelt Avenue. Our little house in Queens trembles, refuge of Cuban immigrants, patriot performance of the passports with which Raul Castro has blessed us, with pretensions of State-God. As there are electric trains, as New York is an electric city, when they pass (and … Continue reading “Things You Cubans Wouldn’t Believe / Orlando Luis Pardo Lazo”
By Lilianne Ruiz Havana, Cuba, April, http://www.cubanet.org. After having been more than a week in a punishment cell, Angel Santiesteban was seen Tuesday, April 16 by his lawyer Amelia Rodriguez Cala, who was denied a visit on April 11. The prison’s own officials had declared that Santiesteban was in a punishment cell and carrying out … Continue reading “Santiesteban depends on us”
To walk together as two good friends breathing freedom through the quiet streets of Warsaw just a few days ago; to happily chat with the man who today is receiving the Andrei Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought in Strasbourg, this seemed like an impossible dream just four years ago. Then, I could barely greet … Continue reading “Hail, Coco! / Mario Lleonart”
To visit the site in Warsaw of the Helsinki Foundation for Human Rights on the afternoon of the historic June 4, anniversary of those first elections with which Poles inaugurated their new period of democracy; to be received there with so much emotion by its President Danuta Przywara, and to hear her from her own … Continue reading “The Summing up of the Helsinki Foundation / Mario Lleonart”
Once, many years ago, the little palace at 13th and 4th in Vedado was the home of a family, a rich family who abandoned it also leaving behind other assets at the triumph of the Revolution in 1959 to go into what they thought was temporary exile and where nothing would even be the same … Continue reading “The Last Days of a House / Regina Coyula”
Among the reasons for the government’s move to increase the number of licenses for self-employment is the need to provide employment opportunities in the private sector for the large number of workers who have lost their jobs due to the massive reduction in national labor force. As a result paladares, or private restaurants, have sprung up … Continue reading “The Battle for Tres Leches / Rebeca Monzo”
The XCIII Plenary of the National Council of the Workers Central Union of Cuba (CTC) that recently met under the chairmanship of the Second Secretary of the Communist Party of Cuba (PCC), agreed to postpone the celebration of its XX Congress, create an Organizing Committee and appoint Ulises Guilarte de Nacimiento to its leadership. The postponement … Continue reading “The Cuban Communist Party and the Workers Central Union / Dimas Castellanos”
A few days ago, from the urinal, I heard a conversation between two inmates in the laundry, which made me turn around and look them in the face. It was the barber, who was commenting to his listener on Martí’s letters to his mothers, and hers to her son. He quoted them from memory, and … Continue reading “Prison Diary XXXIII: The Barber and His Eternal Condemnation / Angel Santiesteban”
Today, June 28, 2013, Angel Santiesteban-Prats finishes four months incarcerated in the Castro concentration camp 1580, El Pitirre, San Miguel Del Padron, Havana. There have been 121 days plus nights in which they have not even managed to diminish his optimism. The same four months in which the dictatorship of the younger of the Castros has continued … Continue reading “Angel Santiesteban Today Finishes Four Months in Jail / Angel Santiesteban”