English Translations of Cubans Writing From the Island
It spread like wildfire all over Cuba. Beginning November 1st, potatoes and split peas would be available without rationing. They would now be sold at higher prices than what they cost through the rationing system since the State would no longer subsidize their cost. A pound of potatoes that costs 0.40 cents in Cuban pesos … Continue reading “Potatoes for free”
So one begins to get old, she thinks, when we are given to remembering the past. The past is a dangerous thing when we let it stead the prominence of our lives. It is always present, determining our actions, like the sun keeps the planets incarcerated in its gravitational prison. Even the comets, incapable of … Continue reading “Life of Sisyphus – Part Nine”
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?”
In his last novel, The Man Who Loved Dogs, the Cuban writer and journalist Leonardo Padura Fuentes tells the story of Ramón Mercader, the man who, with a pickaxe on August 20, 1940, fatally struck the head of Leon Trotski, Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin’s fiercest opponent, and a discreet and cultivated man with a passion … Continue reading “Trotski’s assassin, by Leonardo Padura”
Perhaps I’m not the right person to write this chronicle. Or perhaps I am. I know of colleagues who personally knew Silvio Rodriguez in that first stage of the revolution, ingenuous and difficult, crude and contradictory, where children, as if by magic, were converted into men. Again I am going to talk about the spell … Continue reading “Chronicle with a First Quarter Moon”
The car passes without stopping and she turns her eyes straight ahead, to the deserted road. She begins to raise her arm to look at her watch, but stops herself. Knowing what time it is will only make her worry more. And the worries age her. Her ex used to say that the you had … Continue reading “Life of Sisyphus – Part Eight”
The First Act: The Executioner’s Weeping (1999) For a long time, Jorge Gonzalez, 47, suffered the same nightmares. A discharge from a rifleman on a misty and starless night. Then, he senses the sound of a shot dealt to a condemned man who is he himself. He always wakes up the same: bathed in sweat … Continue reading “A Drama in Two Acts”
If bad luck had a name it would be Antonio Fonseca. An enormous black man of almost 400 pounds, with a wide nose, sharp cheekbones and lips two fingers thick, who was born one cold, wet night in January 1981. His mother, stark raving mad, set her husband and son on fire, when the latter was … Continue reading “Bad Luck”
The new influenza is gaining ground in Cuba. With the change in the weather, according to epidemiologists, it’s expected that the H1N1 virus will reap its harvest among the population of the island. As of October 1, the Ministry of Public Health reported the detection of 457 cases. Now the Hubert de Blanck High School, … Continue reading “H1N1 Attacks”
Not his fault. Jacques Rogge was born in Belgium. And everyone knows: in Europe, baseball is a sport that doesn’t draws crowds. Unlike football (or “soccer” as they call it in the U.S.). The International Olympic Committee president prefers other sports for the summer Olympics. In London, 2012, baseball has already been eliminated. Many hope … Continue reading “Jacques Rogge Does Not Like Baseball”
He knocked on my door when the Brazilian soap opera was starting. He was sweating, after climbing several flights of stairs with his bike in tow. “I’m going to Spain,” he cried, by way of greeting. To give me time to get over my surprise he greeted my wife, returned the USB drive we were … Continue reading “Adiós, Roberto!”
She walks slowly towards the exit of the neighborhood. The sun burns. Her skin suffers from the accumulation of lesions. In the mornings she looks in the mirror and discovers a new spot, small wrinkles on her temple, or a sprout of gray hairs, noting that the years, the house, the kids, the tension, the … Continue reading “Life of Sisyphus – Part Six”
She enters her apartment and sits in front of the fan trying desperately to stop her sweating, her body just not breathing through her clothes. She looks for her hose and begins filling the water tank in the kitchen and, after, the one on the balcony. Although the pump howls as if it were going … Continue reading “The Life of Sisyphus – Part 4”
On January 25, 2007, critic and achiever Enrique Colina took part in the interchange between Cuban intellectuals which ended up being known as the “e-mail wars.” I use the word interchange in a calculated way because I don’t think what happened was a true debate. If we discount the declaration issued by the Secretariat … Continue reading “Colina’s List”
Author: Sindo Pacheco On September 15th, 1980, at 75 years of age, Fabricio Campoamores’s heart got bored from so much beating. After going through the famous tunnel, the one those who have returned from death talk so much about, Fabricio found himself in an open field facing a steep hill, whose slope, covered in a … Continue reading “Fabricio’s second death”