Monologo de la Presidenta (“A Monologue by Madam President”), a one-act play and testimony by Juan Carlos Cremata, has been circulating around the Internet since last week. The piece offers details of the meeting where the film and theater director was informed that his play El rey se muere (“The King is Dying”), an adaptation of Romanian-French playwright Eugene Ionoesco’s work, was being censored.
Read MoreLeonel Ramos Castillo didn’t know he would soon be risking his life. He ran into extortion attempts everywhere he went. A niece of his had sent him money from Texas through Western Union.
Read MoreLeonel Ramos Castillo is asking himself whether he left Ithaca or Troy. While Odysseus sailed a thousand kilometers down the Aegeus on his way home, this Cuban traversed six times this distance, crossing the whole of Central America to reach the far-off destination of Austin, Texas.
Read MoreIf we wanted to assess the results yielded by the United States’ new policy towards Cuba in the course of a year, the clearest illustration of the changes this policy has brought about may be this handshake between Fidel Castro’s son and an unruly Cuban who was previously dubbed a “traitor”, indifferent towards his unexpected host and returning, happy, to the country of his birth.
Read MoreThe night of December 6th – and early morning of the 7th – in addition to marking a historical turning point, sent a particularly worrisome message to Cubans with the possibility of: “Goodbye cheap oil, get ready for power cuts.”
Read MoreIt was one of those agreeable moments that reveal the power of communication without distances or borders. Our friend Isidro, a regular Havana Times commentator and collaborator, had just flown 13 thousand kilometers to reunite with Cuba once again, accompanied by his wife and an exceptional friend.
Read More“Meetings come and go. They are just that, meetings.” The phrase above was pronounced during the first gathering sponsored by the Loyola Center, whose forum debated about Pope Francis’ efforts in connection with Cuba and the United States.
Read MoreOne of the many building collapses that have become common in Havana today took place at the intersection of Oquendo and Carlos III. Once the rubble had been cleared, an empty, 900-square-meter surface was left behind, clamoring to be used. The spot would finally come to be occupied by Mislenis Gil Gomez, who gathers hundreds of children every afternoon with an inflatable park.
Read MoreFidel Castro laid the institutional foundations of Cuban socialism when he announced a constitutional reform during the first congress of the Cuban Communist Party in 1975. The chief decision behind this declared the Party the sole “higher and guiding force of society and the State,” and it was founded on the alleged “infallibility of Marxist-Leninist doctrine, the basis of scientific communism.”
Read MoreThere are no fools in Cuban journalism. Nor is anyone incompetent, let alone naïve. The situation is such that all debates remain hallway chatter. Sometimes, they make it to the park and, occasionally, accompany the drinks people have at a bar in our cities.
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