Lien Estrada

The season has arrived for a fruit so cherished by Cuban women: the mango. We eat it in every way possible—juice, sweets, smoothies, raw.

A friend lent me the autobiographical book Nina Berberova, published by Circe in Spanish. The Italics Are Mine in English).

As a people, we must reclaim a sense of responsibility. Become aware of the power of our words and speak them as we believe we must…

I’m wondering about the following: when faced with friends abroad who aren’t Cubans and want to see Cuba, what do I tell them?

Manolín was my youngest cat, and my favorite. Cowardly and very sweet, he was by my side almost all the time.

A long time ago, a psychologist friend advised me that, in moments of powerlessness I should go to a shooting range.

To remain indifferent to the events now occurring in the Cuban universities would be like betraying our own selves, abandoning our own selves

My aunt tells me, laughing—though what she’s talking about is no laughing matter—that she ran into a friend and they wanted to chat.

Like a prisoner might write on the walls of her cell. Because my house is my home, but for several reasons it has also become my prison.