I experienced the most difficult moments of the Special Period crisis when I was only 16. I had just entered high school when we received the news of the collapse of the socialist camp; the consequences would soon follow.
Read MoreIn a society where the overwhelming majority of youth not only don’t read, but they speak worse and worse every day, and they are voracious consumers of reggaeton and all types of flashy junk, this physical cutting back on poetry is only a symptom of the true illness that is eating away at us as a nation. It is a spiritual metastasis.
Read MoreA perverse tradition in the political culture of the island’s leadership (which has permeated the whole of Cuban society) is that the achievements are privatized and the costs socialized.
Read MoreNow is the time for the Cuban people and its institutions to develop a different approach to attracting investment and development to the island and shake off the asphyxiating stranglehold of a half century embargo/blockade.
Read MoreThe news had run around the whole university like a line of lit gunpowder. Teachers, services workers and even some students were all talking about it. It seems that those of us in my department were the last ones to find out.
Read MoreSending the Cuban Five home in exchange for Alan Gross would have saved the U.S. the embarrassment of the upcoming trial.
Read MoreIt’s incredible that a country as small as Cuba — even tinier than Uruguay — can create such a racket in the world. Be it in politics, medicine or culture, or simply for its cigars, the name of the island always appears. The Wikileaks connection is no exception.
Read More“You can go and complain to the government. I’m not to blame if the law of supply and demand now reigns, or for the fact that they raised my taxes,” said a driver.
Read MoreMiguel believed that his being accepted into the National Union of Cuban Writers and Artists (UNEAC) would finally release him from the curse of being a self-taught painter, meaning someone who couldn’t exhibit his works for sale in authorized galleries.
Read MoreOur societies have always required heroes. But curiously, they have required them as ideological constructions, as imaginary figures based on a series of virtues, more than as real and concrete people. I’m sure that if our heroes came back to life they’d be very upset with the way we describe, imagine and supposedly want them to be.
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