English Translations of Cubans Writing From the Island
14ymedio, Yoani Sánchez, Havana, 3 October 2021 — In a drawer I keep a box with photos that I avoid looking at. They are images filled with the faces that have left, hundreds of friends, colleagues and relatives who no longer inhabit this Island. The escape of athletes, artists, rafters or officials accelerates as the country … Continue reading “Cuba: The Island Flees Inside a Suitcase”
14ymedio, Reinaldo Escobar, Desde Aqui, Havana, August 5, 2021 — The popular program Escriba y Lea [Write and Read] familiarized viewers with one of the most delicate operations a historian can make: dating the beginning and end of an era. When the panelists had to figure out, sometimes by guessing, the historical fact or character suggested in a … Continue reading “Cuba: Before and After July 11”
14ymedio, Yaiza Santos, Madrid, July 31, 2021 — The singer, composer and music producer Pavel Urkiza was born in Kiev (Ukraine), but right away, when he was three months old, he was taken to Havana where he grew up. His parents, both engineers, were part of the first Cuban student brigade in the Soviet Union. … Continue reading “The Change in Cuba Has No Turning Back”
14ymedio, Ariel Hidalgo, Miami, 20 July 2021 — The model born in Stalin’s Russia and imposed by communist parties in each country where they have succeeded, carries, by its very nature, a degenerative evil that makes it unsustainable: since there are no private owners, only administrators appointed by the state leadership, real productive stimulus does … Continue reading “What Led the Cuban Regime to the Current Explosive Crisis”
14ymedio, Havana, 17 July 2021 — With an attendance below previous times, at 6 am this Saturday, an act of “revolutionary reaffirmation” took place on the Malecon, in Havana, in which the ruler Miguel Diaz-Canel intervened. On the eve of this demonstration, a group of students from University of Havana’s School of Biology had criticized the decision to … Continue reading “Cuban Biology Students Object to Mandatory Attendance of ‘Revolutionary Reaffirmation’ Act”
Iván García, Havana, 21 June 2021 — On July 4, 2016, in the splendid residence of the U.S. Chargé d’Affaires in Cuba located west of Havana, there was a celebration of that country’s Independence Day. Hundreds of guests nibbled on hors d’oeuvres, sipped red wine or cold beer, and chatted on sundry topics in small … Continue reading “What Really Interests the Cuban Regime? / Ivan Garcia”
Ivan Garcia, Havana, 10 May 2021 — It is the law of survival of the fittest: only the most quarrelsome, opportunistic, and worthless citizens can get ahead. From top to bottom, today’s Cuban society is a jungle. A failed state that lives off ideological propaganda, promises it never keeps, and a chaotic subsistence economy. If you … Continue reading “Surviving in the Cuban Jungle / Ivan Garcia”
14ymedio, Carlos Alberto Montaner, Miami, 3 December 2018 — The image of the 21st century is that of fleeing multitudes. Who can forget the photo of Alan Kurdi, the three-year-old boy drowned in the Mediterranean when his Syrian-Kurdish family tried to flee from the hell organized by the Russians to support the despot Assad? He looked like he was … Continue reading “The Exodus is the Consequence of Despair”
Havana Times, Lynn Cruz, 27 February 2018 – Ever since I began making Political Theater, one thing hasn’t stopped tormenting me, it’s almost psychological torture. It has something to do with the fact that you end up living in a constant state of paranoia. A prisoner of labels in a world that doesn’t have time … Continue reading “From Worms to Repatriates: Cuba’s Exile Community / Lynn Cruz”
14ymedio, Yoani Sanchez, Havana, 21 November 2015 – “Anyone who has $15,000 to give a human trafficker is not fleeing poverty,” were the words of Oliver Zamaro, an official spokesperson on Cuban television who was commenting this Friday on the situation of the more than 2,000 Cubans stranded at the border between Costa Rica and … Continue reading “The Culprit Has The Solution / 14ymedio, Yoani Sanchez”
Ivan Garcia, 4 August 2015 — In Latin American literature, magical realism has weighty authors like Alejo Carpentier, Arturo Úslar Pietri, or the genius of Aracataca, Gabriel García Márquez, who with his fictional town of Macondo portrayed a continent of rascals, loafers, and pompous leaders. In politics, magical realism has its ultimate leader in Fidel Castro. … Continue reading “Cuba and its Magical Realism in Politics / Ivan Garcia”
Havana, Cuba, October, www.cubanet.org – It was a great achievement by Rosa Berre (Havana, 1941 – Miami, 2006) to publicly expose the mass media of Fidel Castro, whose writers were willing to lie in exchange for crumbs. When, at the beginning of the internet, with the help of an old computer, a fax machine, her ingenuity and her … Continue reading “Rosa Berre’s Great Achievement / Tania Diaz Castro”
This August 5 will be the 19th anniversary of the Maleconazo. The rumor that boats from the United States were reaching the Havana Malecon to transport Cubans to that country, turned into the gunpowder that moved hundreds of people — aware of the Mariel Boat Lift in 1980 — to the north coast of Cuban … Continue reading “The Malecon Uprising / Rosa Maria Rodriguez”
EN UNIÓN ESTÁ LA FUERZA, originally uploaded by orlandoluispardolazo. “Mark of Eggs” Ernesto Pérez Chang HAVANA TIMES Intervene In 1980 the Marxist Louis Althusser murdered his wife in the middle of an attack of schizophrenia; also dead – but not at the hands of Althusser – Sartre, Roland Barthes and Bon Scott, the lead singer … Continue reading “IN UNION IS STRENGTH”
