English Translations of Cubans Writing From the Island
Photo: Rebeca Typically, we Cubans are short on economic issues and pass on politics. At least that has been the case for the last fifty-six years. We veer between shortcomings and excesses, never finding a happy medium, as so many of the world’s nations and peoples do. We now seem to be in a period … Continue reading “Overstatement / Fernando Damaso”
According to the authorities, Cubans are now allowed to travel, they can own businesses, and now Cuba is the world champion of freedom. However, even so, desertions from the country continue apace. Within the span of a few hours, ten dancers from the National Ballet of Cuba via Puerto Rico, two tennis players who competed … Continue reading “Cuba is Going, But into Exile* / Juan Juan Almeida”
Cubanet, 20 May 2014 | Miriam Celaya HAVANA, Cuba.12 years ago I read a beautiful article by poet and writer Rafael Alcides in honor of the Republic’s centennial. He titled it “The Sleeping Princess”, a metaphor enfolding the yearnings of many Cubans who prefer to believe that our Republic, with so much sacrifice of several … Continue reading “May 20th: The Witch’s Curse / Miriam Celaya”
When it comes to Gabriel García José de la Concordia Márquez (Aracataca, Colombia, 1927) myth and reality merge. The first time he heard the name Fidel Castro, Gabo believed, was in the Latin Quarter in Paris, in 1955.
Beautiful Venezuela, so weighed down for such a long time with your own revolution. Is that what you wanted? No! That’s why we are going to save ourselves. So much left wing higher education, so much nostalgia for Silvio Rodríguez and so many other dogs’ breakfasts of patriotic poetry, so much Castroism disguised as uncomfortable … Continue reading “Let’s Go Venezuela / Orlando Luis Pardo Lazo”
As the world shouts itself hoarse over what’s happening in Venezuela, the Cuban Network of Intellectuals, Artists and Social Movements in Defense of Humanity assures us that this is nothing more than a ruse of the “fascist right” and they’ve launched a tirade in very bad taste from the site “Segunda cita” (Second Quote), belonging … Continue reading ““Intellectuals in Defense of Humanity” Annoy Families of Cubans Working in Venezuela / Luis Felip Rojas”
HAVANA, Cuba December 10, 2013, Augusto César San Martín / www.cubanet.org.- The home of Antonio Rodiles, leader of the independent group Estado de Sats, which from today through tomorrow is celebrating the First International Conference on Human Rights, was besieged by the police and plainclothes agents as the sun rose this morning. Third Street, from … Continue reading “Antonio Rodiles’ House Besieged at Dawn / Augusto Cesar San Martin, Camilo Ernesto Olivera”
The sixth WHAT? People wondered when his graffiti started appearing around the city. And then it was more than a signature. But the irreverence is unforgiven. State Security is not about to understand this punk aesthetic, much less the art of graffiti. The forces of order are too serious. For them, Danilo Maldonado, alias “El … Continue reading “El Sexto, Artist Non Grata / Maria Matienzo Puerto, Danilo Maldonado”
By Carmen Muñoz for ABC.es To Antonio G. Rodiles (born Havana, 1972) it seemed “unthinkable” that a Cuban musician would dare to ask for free elections during an official concert, until the jazz musician Roberto Carcassés did it last week in the capital. “It’s a sign of the new times,” said this physicist, director of … Continue reading “Cubans Are Losing Their Fear / Antonio Rodiles, Estado de Sats”
HAVANA, Cuba , September www.cubanet.org – The musician Robertico Carcassés crossed the line. According to his detractors, he chose the least appropriate time and place to ask for — in addition the release of the four Cuban spies and the end of the “blockade,” as dictated by the script of the show — free access … Continue reading “Sacrilege at the Protestdrome / Jorge Olivera Castillo”
—Did you hear? —What? About the robbery of the giraffe from Havana’s zoo? —Yeah, a giraffe, four monkeys and a pony, but I’m not talking about that… —Those guys must have been ninjas. A Cuban version of “Madagascar,” “Calabazar[1]: The Story of How a Group of Zoo Animals Trying to Prevent their Friends from Becoming … Continue reading “The Great News / Enrique del Risco”
Silvio Rodriguez enlightens us about the Five Grey Years and the late censor Luis Pavón: In the time when Pavon led the National Council of Culture, there was injustice with some writers and artists, because of narrow views. I believe his responsibility for that has been exaggerated. I think it is necessary to analyze what … Continue reading “The Embarrassment / Enrique Del Risco”
These days, the name of Cuba has echoed in the Spanish press, but not for the arbitrary arrests and hunger strikes of dozens of imprisoned opponents, but for the statement of actor Willy Toledo — exceptional in his role as a fucker caught in the act in The Perfect Crime — who after embracing Hugo … Continue reading “Background Noise / Miguel Iturria Savon”
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”
FUCKED FASCISM The only time I left Cuba I went to the International Book Fair in Guadalajara, Jalisco, in November-December 2002. There Mexico gave me a disheartening lesson. In Cuba, as we all knew already, we were heading towards a police state capitalism. But in Mexico I had a surprise that my restless imagination had … Continue reading “MEXICO DF, OF FIDEL / Orlando Luis Pardo Lazo”