English Translations of Cubans Writing From the Island
14ymedio, Madrid, 31 March 2023 — Ten days after being beaten in a Miami gym for which he was hospitalized, rapper Tekashi 6ix9ine has reappeared with a video clip recorded in Cuba. The song, which is titled Bori, has the collaboration of the Cuban singer Lenier Mesa, and just an hour after its premiere on … Continue reading “Rapper Tekashi 6ix9ine Distributes $100 Bills in a Town in Cuba”
14ymedio, Havana, 2 April 2023 — Political prisoner Yoandi Montiel Hernández, known as El Gato de Cuba, obtained a permit to visit his family a few days before completing his two-year prison sentence, accused of contempt after lobbing criticism against the regime during livestreams on social media. On Sunday, the news was confirmed by activist … Continue reading “Cuban Comedian ‘El Gato’ Receives a Pass to Visit his Family After Two Years in Prison”
EFE (via 14ymedio), Havana, 28 March 2023 — The NGO Amnesty International (AI) denounced on Monday in its annual report the “hundreds of people” in prison in Cuba for “the peaceful exercise of their human rights” — including “three prisoners of conscience” — and the “repression” of “dissidence” and protests. In its document, which summarizes … Continue reading “Amnesty International Denounces the Hundreds of Prisoners in Cuba for Exercising ‘Their Human Rights’”
14ymedio, Havana, 25 March 2023 — Activist Aniette González was arrested on Thursday in Camagüey after posting her photographs during a performance with the Cuban flag. Accused of “insulting the symbols of the homeland,” she was transferred to Villa María Luisa, the headquarters of State Security in the province, according to reports of several users. … Continue reading “Police Arrest an Activist in Camaguey for ‘Insulting’ the Cuban Flag”
14ymedio, Xavier Carbonell, Salamanca, 15 March 2023 – In the film The Lives of Others, the writer Georg Dreyman encapsulates his break with the regime in a report about suicides in communist countries. He writes it in red ink on a secret typewriter and under the vigilance of secret agent Wiesler, alias HGW XX/7. When … Continue reading “The Havana Law: The Authentic Face of the Cuban Tourist Paradise”
Note from Translating Cuba: Somehow this article from December of last year got ‘missed’ and so we are posting it now. 14ymedio, Reinaldo Escobar, Desde Aquí, Havana, 12 December 2022 — I could add more names to the title, mentioning, for example, Félix Navarro or Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara, but Jose (here without an accent) … Continue reading “I Have a Friend Unjustly Imprisoned, His Name is Jose Daniel Ferrer”
14ymedio, Havana, 30 November 2022 — Cuban writer and journalist Carlos Manuel Álvarez won the Sergio González Rodríguez Anagrama/UANL Chronicle Award this Tuesday in Mexico with his unpublished book Los intrusos [The Intruders]. According to the author, the text addresses his “long quartering” with the San Isidro Movement, in November 2020. The award jury was made up … Continue reading “Cuban Carlos M. Alvarez Wins the Anagrama de Cronica Award with a Book on the San Isidro Movement”
14ymedio, Madrid, 21 November 2022 — Journalist Carlos Manuel Álvarez tried to return to Cuba this Sunday from Miami, but American Airlines employees informed him that he could not board the flight due to Havana’s refusal to authorize his entry into the country. ” ’You have been denied from Havana’, they told me,” the writer … Continue reading “Carlos M. Alvarez Will Return to Cuba ‘By Any Other Way’ After American Airlines Denied Him Boarding”
14ymedio, Madrid, 14 November 2022 — On Monday the organisations Democratic Spaces and Cuba Decide asked the Canadian government to sanction the Cuban leader Miguel Díaz-Canel and a further nine officials, as well as the bodies known as the boinas negras (black berets) — the National Special Brigade of the Ministry of the Interior; and the boinas … Continue reading “Canada is Asked to Sanction Diaz-Canel and Others for the Repression in Cuba”
14ymedio, Ariel Hidalgo, Miami, 9 November 2022 — With the increasingly profound crisis of popular representation in the Cuban dictatorship and a government about to collapse, there will come a time when a power vacuum requires the constitution of a Civic Board composed of people who have earned the respect of the population in their … Continue reading “The First Decrees of the New Cuba”
14ymedio, Madrid, November 10, 2022 — The controversial Cuban rapper Denis Solís has been in Germany for a few days with an aunt, an uncle and a cousin, like the activist Daniela Rojo, who is in the same refuge in Nuremberg, and who spoke to 14ymedio. Together with his relatives, the artist crossed the border … Continue reading “Cuban Rapper Denis Solis, of the San Isidro Movement, Seeks Asylum in Germany”
14ymedio, Yunior García Aguilera, Madrid, 9 November 2022 — To the grave situation in the sectors of economy, food, finance, energy, politics, social justice, migration and health — all from which Cuba is suffering — we may add a new crisis that could deliver the final death blow to a fading, crumbling model. Because if … Continue reading “The Culture Crisis of the Cuban Revolution”
14ymedio, Anna Mahjar-Barducci, Jerusalem, 20 October 2022 — On 19 October 2022 a ’mash-up’ of two tracks: Patria y Vida [Homeland and Life] and Baraye (For the sake of…) was uploaded to the Azadi channel on YouTube. The former was performed by Cuban rappers Yotuel Romero, Descemer Bueno, Maykel Osorbo Castillo, El Funky, and the group Gente … Continue reading “The Iranian ‘Patria y Vida’, A Song That Unites Havana with Teheran”
14ymedio, Havana, 7 October 7, 2022 — Thais Mailén Franco, one of those arrested for the demonstration on Obispo Street in Havana in April 2021, has been in U.S. territory since the early hours of Wednesday. “Crossing the California border, crossing the entire desert,” says the activist herself in a video posted on her social … Continue reading “Thais Mailen Franco, One of the Detainees from the Obispo St. Demonstration, Arrives in the U. S. by the ‘Route of the Volcanoes’*”
14ymedio, Havana, 30 August 2022 — “If a door were opened for me right now, where I could go into exile, brother, I’d go, do you understand?” The words of Maykel Castillo Osorbo, in a telephone conversation from prison with Armando Labrador, owner of the Cántalo TV YouTube channel, suggest that the artist is willing to … Continue reading “From Jail, Rapper Maykel ‘Osorbo’ Suggests He is Willing to Leave Cuba”
