English Translations of Cubans Writing From the Island
In the 1950’s there were two hotels out of their league: the Hotel National in Havana and the Hotel International in Varadero. The first one is still standing in the heart of Vedado, the second one will be demolished. This was just confirmed by Jorge Alvarez, Director of Center of Inspection and Environmental Control. This … Continue reading “The Hotel International in Varadero will be Demolished / Ivan Garcia”
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”
Dimas is second from right. Interview with Dimas Castellanos Marti, historian and journalist. From Havana, Felix Sautie Mederos Por Esto! asks: “Unravel the causes of the crisis our society finds itself in (…) The concept of race as a group of hereditary characteristics seems to lack foundation, as a social construction it has a damaging … Continue reading “Interview with Dimas Castellanos”
Eighty activists of the Independent and Democratic Cuba party (CID) in Palma Soriano denounce the government for its incompetence, its abuses, corruption and deceit. This government is leading the population to despair. It mistreats and exploits citizens. It harasses and punishes the opposition without reason or justification. There are political prisoners because of the fear … Continue reading “Eighty Palma Soriano CID Activists Accuse the Dictatorship / CID”
Tomorrow, May 1, the United Nations Human Rights Council will meet in Geneva, where Cuba will present a report with notes on its prison policy. “Dressing up” for the occasion, for the first time in nine years the Castro regime opened its jails to the national and international press accredited in Cuba. It is public … Continue reading “The United Nations Human Rights Council and its Great Challenge With Cuba / Angel Santiesteban”
By: Ignacio Estrada Cepero. Photo: Ignacio Estrada. Havana, February 5, 2013. The renowned dancer Marta Bercy in a press conference in the Habaneciendo salon at the House of Music in Central Havana, told the national press and guests everything about what is happening in the twentieth edition of Workuba.
From TranslatingCuba.com site manager: Add this blog — Pieces of the Island — to your reading list. As always “Pieces of the Island” brings up-to-the minute news directly from Cuba — and in particular from places other than Havana — from a broad range of activists who don’t all run their own blogs. Without this … Continue reading “Violence increases against dissidents in Cuba (Part 1) / Pieces of the Island #Cuba”
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”
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 “For Another Cuba – Citizen Demand for Another Cuba”
Havana has carried out a process of appropriation of post-Marxist nationalism, through a nearly mystic cult of the figure Jose Marti, at the same time attempting the depoliticization of writers and artists. The mechanism of terror employed by a dictatorship fails only with one social group: the intellectuals. It’s not necessarily that the intellectuals are … Continue reading “Praise for the Cowardly / Wendy Iriepa and Ignacio Estrada”
From August 12 to September 16 in the Havana Gallery, located on Linea Street between E and F, Vedado, is a presentation from a motley group of artists that have in common the fact that they are left-handers, which justifies the title — Sinisters — and the Manifesto of the left-handed artistic Cuban artistic or … Continue reading “An End to the Stigmatized Lefty / Miguel Iturria Savón”
In Cuba, with its pregnant history of violent acts, we pay exaggerated attention to episodes of war in detriment to other ways of making history, such as science–forger of knowledge and of culture–that contributes so much to the formation of nationality the nation and the country over centuries. On May 19 of this year we … Continue reading “Heroes Without Weapons / Dimas Castellanos”
“History is lived forward, but to understand it we must look back.” Kierkegaard The interaction between the lack of administrative capacity, economic inefficiency, hopelessness, widespread corruption and the massive exodus, have made the current crisis in Cuba the deepest of its history. The combination of these factors, sufficient to break any human group that aspires … Continue reading “Seeing the Past From the Viewpoint of the Present / Dimas Castellanos”
As an end of year gift, the fourth edition of the magazine Voces is now circulating on the ‘Net, located at www.vocescubanas.com/voces and presented this past 26th of December in the apartment of Yoani Sánchez and Reinaldo Escobar, founders of the Cuban Blogger Academy, which has published these pages without censorship since August, far from … Continue reading “Voces 4: Unstoppable / Miguel Iturria Savón”
We were waiting for a ride on 23rd when Ernesto Morales’ cell phone rang. It was Yoani Sánchez, worried about him because he could have taken AeroCaribbean Flight No. 883. We were stunned for a few seconds and then Ernesto told me: “I was going to travel on that plane.” I felt helpless to express … Continue reading “Catastrophe / Claudia Cadelo”
