English Translations of Cubans Writing From the Island
There are those who believe that history is written only by those in power, by means of textbooks, testimonials, biographies, means of communication and other supports of dominance that certify the version of the victors. Cuban history of the 20th Century confirms the rule, but in conflict with the story of the main characters who … Continue reading “Improper Conduct / Miguel Iturria Savón”
The young emigrant Sergio de los Reyes (b. Havana 1978), is based in Toronto, Canada, where he alternates his work and his passion for literature, has just launched an SOS to his countrymen on the island and exile who have Internet access, to ask them help on his personal project for a digital Library specializing … Continue reading “A Digital Library / Miguel Iturria Savón”
Translator’s note: The translation of this post was delayed; Voices 7 is now out. Friday night, November 12, was one of magic and joy for the sponsors and witnesses of the journal Voices, developed since last August by Yoani Sanchez, Reinaldo Escobar, Luis Orlando and other creators from the Academy Blogger in Cuba, who distributed … Continue reading “Voices 3 About to be Released / Miguel Iturria Savón”
Havana has been asleep since I was born. I like to stand at the end of Calle 12 and look at the line the sea draws in the distance. Almost all my friends live, or intend to live, on the other side of that line. Where my eyes cannot go. I read “The Color of … Continue reading “The Legacy / Claudia Cadelo”
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”
On February 10 the Havana International Book Fair began in the La Cabaña fortress, extended to March 6 in the capital’s bookshops and in the provincial centers of books and literature, which sold more than 2,000 titles of publishers from Cuba and abroad, among them the Bicentennial Alba collection with a score of works from … Continue reading “Of Absences and Other Troubles / Miguel Iturria Savon”
– From Josefina de Diego – I confess that I didn’t remember the full text known as “Words to the Intellectuals,” delivered by Fidel Castro on June 30, 1961, at the National Library to a group of intellectuals. I think that, like many people, the only thing I remembered from the text was his famous … Continue reading “Thoughts on Fidel’s “Words to the Intellectuals” and other texts / POLEMICA: The 2007 Intellectual Debate”
ARENAS FRIDAY Orlando Luis Pardo Lazo Twenty years. Anniversary of the adversary. Suicide in the winter. Suicide to win the marathon against the doctors and politicians (often indistinguishable) and also to kick his reading public (which did not exist then) to cuss it out twenty years later. In other words, today. Suicide when beauty does … Continue reading “ARGH$ÝOASIAjnd{QCHW%KFÉFOAWLFÚUBGWAEÑYN… / Orlando Luis Pardo Lazo”
THE FUTURE WILL BE TODAY Orlando Luis Pardo Lazo The night in Cuba is long and damp. A light drizzle snows on the abandoned neighborhoods. The facades soften, trace their inconceivable masterpieces at the point of bursting. Everything is plastic in the middle of the debacle, remotely and very humanly textured. Everyone speaks, there is … Continue reading “10 From 2010 / Orlando Luis Pardo Lazo”
ZOELIDARIDAD Orlando Luis Pardo Lazo When I was a biochemist, in cyanotic laboratories for imported carcinogenic reagents and the local air conditioning (much better than the caverns of the University of Havana, where all research is a joke to obtain scholarships abroad and stay there), among colleagues we were always more aware of Cuban literature … Continue reading “ZOOMING ZOE / Orlando Luis Pardo Lazo”
On one of those nights in Havana, when the sky is clear with a handful of stars as a witness, someone told me that the Castro brothers feel a particular hatred for three Cubans. The list, what a coincidence, three writers: Guillermo Cabrera Infante, Reinaldo Arenas and Zoé Valdés. The resentment was so great, this … Continue reading “Zoé Valdés, a Pen Like a Whip / Iván García”
14ymedio, Madrid, June 2, 2023 — The Cuban historian Alina Bárbara López Hernández, who has been demonstrating peacefully since April on the 18th of each month in the Freedom Park of the city of Matanzas, is regulated; that is, prohibited from leaving the Island. In a post published this Friday, the professor explained that she … Continue reading “Professor Alina Barbara Lopez Has Been ‘Regulated’ and Will Not Be Able To Leave Cuba”
EFE (via 14ymedio), Miami, April 25, 2023. (EFE) — The Inter-American Press Association (IAPA) denounced on Tuesday an unprecedented “crisis” in Cuba’s unofficial media and the “repression” of the authorities against journalists and influencers. In its new biannual report, the IAPA says that “the crisis of independent journalism is approaching a bottom never seen in … Continue reading “Press Association Denounces ‘Repression’ Against the Media, Journalists and ‘Influencers’ in Cuba”
At five in the afternoon on July 22, the death of opposition leader and founder of the Christian Liberation Movement (MCL) Oswaldo Payá was confirmed. The news started as a rumor that spread during the early hours of Sunday afternoon. Known nationally and internationally for organizing and carrying out the Varela Project, his death at … Continue reading “Cuban Opposition Leader Oswaldo Payá Dies in Car Crash / Yoani Sánchez”
Citizen Demand for Another Cuba As Cubans, legitimate children of this land and an essential part of our nation, we feel a deep sorrow at the prolonged crisis that we are experiencing and the demonstrated inability of the current government to make fundamental changes. This obliges us, from civil society, to seek and demand our … Continue reading “Citizen Demand for Another Cuba – 536 Signatures and Counting”