English Translations of Cubans Writing From the Island
The young Spanish politician Ángel Carromero’s days are numbered. It could be 6 or 666 days, but it will not be a “natural” death. He knows it and his executioners also know that he knows it. So it must be in his still-open file in the confidential archives of Cuban State Security. Hence, the Ministry … Continue reading “Carromero’s Last Days / Orlando Luis Pardo Lazo”
CUBANET – The house of opposition leader Jorge Luis García (Antúnez) has just been sacked this morning after State Security foreces (political police) carried off him and his wife, Iris Tamara Perez, as well as the noted activist’s brother Loreto Garcia, and his wife as well Donaida González Paseiro. The events occurred in the morning … Continue reading “Antunez and His Wife Arrested and Disappeared”
“Reagan wears a skirt, we wear pants, we have a commandant whose balls roar!”(Revolutionary slogan made famous by Felipe Pérez Roque) Sunday, January 19, 2014 | Miriam Celaya Havana wakes up early, and before 8:00 am and there is a swarm of voices and movement. Old cars and buses rattle around the city, people crowd … Continue reading “Vulgarity: The Revolution’s Bastard Child / Miriam Celaya”
HAVANA, Cuba, January www.cubanet.org – The building where I live has 42 apartments and three floors. Most of the time did not see anyone in the hallways. However, on January 13, at 9 pm, for the second time since the last beating I received (November 19) a group of about 8 or 10 neighbors stood … Continue reading “I’d Rather go Back to Prison / Martha Beatriz Roque Cabello”
Phrases and slogans are often survival strategies, empty expressions that are repeated time and again until they form a part of the landscape. The University is for Revolutionaries is one of these phrases that nevertheless makes sense when we can peek inside a protest rally or act of revolutionary reaffirmation such as that held last … Continue reading “A Sentimental Education / Regina Coyula”
To the wall! To the wall!* HAVANA, Cuba, March, www.cubanet.org – Luis Cino Alvarez – A worthy poet who has known how to confront decades of ostracism, Rafael Alcides, wrote, “Regrets and hopes for a new jailed writer.” After the letter by Alcides, email notes of support signed by various writers in favor of … Continue reading “Selective Ignorance: The Women Writers of UNEAC / Luis Cino Alvarez, Angel Santiesteban”
April 2013 marks a decade since once of the most depressing moments of post-revolutionary history: the so-called Black Spring. It was a time when Fidel Castro, excited about what he assumed was a revolutionary wave in Latin America and the arrival of the first subsidies from Venezuelans, decided to eradicate every sign of discontent and … Continue reading “The Executed and The Accomplices in April / Haroldo Dilla Alfonso”
By Bertrand de la Grange. Translated from DiariodeCuba.com. Attacks on Yoani Sanchez are getting a lot of media coverage, generally favorable to the blogger. Don’t panic, Yoani: if the dogs bark, it’s because you’re doing well and they’re afraid. So I would summarize my first impression of the fascinating journey of the most famous Cuban … Continue reading “Operation Yoani”
Without having been able to go and join the Ladies in White, I didn’t feel like publishing anything today. Until I found out that my experience also needed to be told: Why, if the Cuban opposition is peaceful and I haven’t seen any Ladies expressing themselves in a way not suitable for the ears of children, … Continue reading “The Tokonoma in the Wall / Lilianne Ruiz”
Yesterday I decided to go to Neptune Street between Aramburu and Hospital Streets to see about and receive impressions of the site where from 7:35 in the morning on Friday until today, Tuesday, September 25, the repressive organs have established themselves in front of the headquarters of the Ladies in White. At some point in … Continue reading “The Preponderance of the Small / Lilianne Ruiz”
When in Cuba we say “the system” we are referring to a circumstance which, even though we recognize it as abnormal, arbitrary and unnatural — the condition of being on an Island and being subjected to a “political-ideological education” experiment, as well as the terror — can be, for many, unbearable. There are many families … Continue reading “Where the Dictatorship Nests / Lilianne Ruiz”
The recent editorial by the newspaper Granma clearly defines the mediocrity and poverty of thought of a system that now howls desperately at its approaching end. The text is an apology to the cynicism of the elite and those who serve it, who try to discredit and silence the independent voices that spring from Cuban … Continue reading “Granma Newspaper: The Lies And The Cynicism”
[I have decided to publish, before this blog is closed down, some texts that I didn’t publish at the time because it was practically impossible to do it because of obvious difficulties or because as time passed I doubted that it would be the best idea. Due to recent events, I think it is best … Continue reading “Closed by Demolition / Francis Sánchez”
Some suggest that, in Cuba, the sustained and increasing harassment of dissidents and independent civil society groups responds to a government offensive strategy designed to eliminate pockets of resistance to the dictatorship, marked at times by a preponderance of alternative civic sectors and the use of information technologies and communications. For my part, I don’t … Continue reading “About Cyber-Wars and Cyber-Warriors / Miriam Celaya”
On December 10, Human Rights Day, my 15-year-old son came home from school and said he had been summoned to go to park centrally located in Havana, exactly the same place where, each year, a group of dissidents and non-conformists demonstrate for improvements for Cuba’s citizens and political prisoners. The students of all the high … Continue reading “Cuban Regime Calls on its Children for Shock Troops / Yoani Sánchez”
