English Translations of Cubans Writing From the Island
The General-cum-President of Cuba has publicly announced that we are going to return to drinking coffee mixed with peas. For the uninitiated, this brew is a disagreeable invention. The only thing that can be said in its favor is that it stimulates the imagination to make us believe we are drinking coffee. Those who work … Continue reading “Steeping Peas”
For more information about this series of posts, please click here. From “The New Man” Dear comrades, close comrades, Those who now warn us, memorializing the life and work of Papito, Pavón and Quesada, instead of ridiculing them as flunkies, or treating them as model sacrificial snitches from a gray period of our history, should … Continue reading “Letter from the New Man in Defense of the Gang of Three / POLEMICA: The 2007 Intellectual Debate”
After a long time without participating in readers’ debates, I am encouraged by comments arising from the post “Cuba: potential exit scenarios”, which, as I stated at the end of the text, was written precisely with the intention of the discussion of the proposals I listed in it. Doing a general review, some readers coincide … Continue reading “Some Topics up for Debate / Miriam Celaya”
In 2003, 75 Cubans were arrested in four days. Their crime? Being pro-democracy political activists, fighters for human rights, or simply journalists independent of the hegemonic line of the only Cuban political party, the Communists. Pedro Argüelles Morán was one of them. Seven years later — in the same arbitrary way as the imprisonments — … Continue reading “Journalism as a Living Faith: Telephone Interview with Pedro Argüelles Morán #liberanlosya / Claudia Cadelo”
Havana, October 5, 2010 “Year 52 of the Revolution” A: Head of Villa Marista I, Inés María Ramos Nápoles, ID#: 40012108557, resident of No, 119 4th Street between lane 4 between 1st and 3rd. Miramar, Playa, Ciudad de La Habana, and mother of a U.S. citizen of Cuban origin Yamil Ramos Domínguez, am writing to … Continue reading “Request For A Change in Conditions of Confinement / Yamil Domínguez”
Only two cemeteries in Paris and Barcelona exceed in funeral sculptures and architectural layout the majesty of the Cementerio de Colon (Columbus Cemetery) which occupies 140 acres in the elegant district of Vedado and is bounded by a fence that silences the bustling Havana, while those who make the cross as they walk or drive … Continue reading “Eternal Rest for Art / Miguel Iturria Savón”
On one of those nights in Havana, when the sky is clear with a handful of stars as a witness, someone told me that the Castro brothers feel a particular hatred for three Cubans. The list, what a coincidence, three writers: Guillermo Cabrera Infante, Reinaldo Arenas and Zoé Valdés. The resentment was so great, this … Continue reading “Zoé Valdés, a Pen Like a Whip / Iván García”
Ever since Sebastián de Ocampo circumnavigated Cuba, between 1508 and 1509, the seduction of the then blue and clear waters of Havana Bay began. He named it Puerto Carenas* because he stopped here to repair some damage to his ship and to renew his fresh water reserves. Two small rivers flow into this bay. Ocampo … Continue reading “The Dying Bay / Miriam Celaya”
The line at a home-based private “pizza parlor” — takeaway only — in Havana. Exclusive to The Huffington Post. Under the strict canons of the socialist economy — planned, centralized and subsidized — self-employment has always been seen as an undesirable species of pest that periodically needs to be abated and occasionally even exterminated. One … Continue reading “Will a Half Million Laid Off Cubans Find Work in Private Enterprise? / Yoani Sánchez”
My generation grew up listening to the litany. It wasn’t the only one. It was barely a new one. But I can attest to that: along with a motto I never understood “Pioneers for Communism, we shall be like Ché!”, my legs and my conscious grew up hearing that the country my grandparents had, without … Continue reading “20 Reasons to Doubt / Ernesto Morales Licea”
Minister of Finances and Prices In July 2009, The Minister of Finances and Prices, a member of the Council of Ministers, ordered the confiscation of property obtained by Teófilo Roberto, the father of Antonio Roberto, during the period from 1998 to 2008. The action was taken under the authority of Decree-Law 149 (“Regarding the seizure … Continue reading “Minister Places Citizen in Indefensible Position / Laritza Diversent”
The Minister of Finances and Prices, Lina Olinda Pedraza Rodriguez, ordered the execution of a process of confiscation against Teófilo Roberto López Licor, 66, based on Legal Decree 149 “on the confiscation of goods and accumulations made through improper enrichment,” known as the Law Against the Newly Rich and its regulation, Decree No. 187, both … Continue reading “The Powers of the Minister of Finances and Prices are Unconstitutional and Arbitrary / Laritza Diversent”
A new rise in prices, not announced in the media, has been taking place silently, both in products that are purchased only in CUC as well as in others, sold in Cuban pesos. “Silently” in a manner of speaking, because at times the price increases are a scandalous 20% or more over the previous value. … Continue reading “Economy Bankrupt and Prices Rising”
UNDERSTANDING THE CURTAIN AS A TRIUMPH Orlando Luis Pardo Lazo Do not talk anymore of Havana. Do not talk any more of Cuba. Do not talk anymore about the Revolution. Do not talk anymore. As naive intellectuals, especially a Dictionary of grandiloquent words. Some Complete Works with patches of politically perfect paragraphs. An Encyclopedia stuffed … Continue reading “CUBAN CODA”
Photo: Dagoberto Valdes, Juan Juan Almeida, Yoani Sanchez Yoani Sanchez: 1. You are an important public figure, especially because you are the son of one of the historic icons of the Cuban Revolution, the commander Juan Almeida Bosque. How have you dealt with these circumstances? Have you taken advantage of them? Have they become a … Continue reading “Interview with Juan Juan Almeida*”
