English Translations of Cubans Writing From the Island
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”
He was black and homosexual. He was not physically attractive and he had a nasal voice. But with a tone as perfect as his hands, which appeared designed to slide across the piano keys of the bar-restaurant, Monseigneur, on 21st and O, in Vedado, where Bola de Nieve (Snow Ball) had his sanctuary. El Bola … Continue reading “Unique and Incomparable”
