A Space of Unknowing: Talking with Gabriela Garcia
Gabriela Garcia discusses her debut novel, OF WOMEN AND SALT.
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Posts Tagged: Cuba
Creating New Possibilities: Talking with Nato Green
Comedian Nato Green discusses performing political standup, revolutionaries, and the way forward for tired capital-L Leftists.
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Seeking Terra Firma
To truly know a land is to become it—to embody its storms in your bones, taste its dark soil beneath your nails, know the tangled history of the people who walked before you.
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Sound & Vision: Celia C. Pérez
Allyson McCabe talks with Celia C. Pérez about her debut middle-grade novel, The First Rule of Punk, her inspirations for writing the book, and her own childhood.
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Fidel Castro: The Playboy Comandante
The comandante produced ideological fantasies on a mass scale within the context of the Cold War which led to an exotic, sexy, and happy vision of Cuba.
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The Rumpus Book Club Chat with Achy Obejas
Achy Obejas discusses her new collection, The Tower of the Antilles, what she’s learned from translating works of others, and why we should all read poetry every day.
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Binary States of America: A Letter to Obama
In the end, although I wanted you to be more like Charles Bronson or Malcolm or Luke Cage, I am very proud to have witnessed your historic presidency—the successes, and even the disappointments.
...moreThis Week in Books: To Have Been There Then
Welcome to This Week in Books, where we highlight books just released by small and independent presses. Books have always been a symbol for and means of spreading knowledge and wisdom, and they are an important part of our toolkit in fighting for social justice. If we’re going to move our national narrative away from […]
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The Real Fidel
In a flash nearly 200,000 Cuban refugees understood that we’d lost our homeland and had better get used to life en la Yuma. We packed for six weeks, and we stayed for six decades.
...moreThe Rumpus Interview with Russell Banks
Russell Banks discusses his new book, Voyager: Travel Writings, why we are never free from our history, and how writing saved his life.
...moreSong of the Day: “Chan Chan”
The original Buena Vista Social Club was a members-only group that formed in Havana, Cuba, during the first half of the 20th century. The club became a cultural nexus for the city, drawing in musicians and artists who would perform at its events. Though widespread changes in Cuban society after the Revolution of 1959 resulted in […]
...moreCuba’s Unfinished Race Revolution
I want readers to understand how racism and antiracism can exist at the same time even in a revolutionary setting. Antiracism in Cuba: The Unfinished Revolution by author and professor Devyn Benson is the long-untold history of racism against Black Cubans. The San Francisco Bay View interviewed Benson about the recent publication of her book, […]
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Spotlight: Lorenzo Fonda’s “Yo Solve Cuba”
Jotting down experiences in comics form is also a way for me to assimilate and process them through my own life-filter…
...moreMaybe-True, Half-Hearted Hemingway in Havana
Papa: Hemingway in Cuba is a recently released film from director Bob Yari following the maybe-true misadventures of the late Hemingway and his years in Cuba, where he lived, drank, and complained after winning the Nobel Prize for fiction. A young author travels to Havana to learn from his literary idol and a tortured bro-mance […]
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The Sunday Rumpus Essay: Motel Ecstasy
Alia Volz’s artist, expat mom needed to leave Mexico and go back to the United States for a heavy-duty chemo treatment, which meant it was time for a mother-daugther road trip.
...morePublishers Lobby to Lift Cuban Embargo
Publishers want access to Cuba. The longstanding trade embargo with Cuba includes books and educational materials, but publishers have been lobbying the White House to lift the embargo. The island nation has a literacy rate near 100%.
...moreProtecting Papa’s Papers
Ernest Hemingway lived outside of Havana, Cuba for almost twenty years, and his former house there is a national museum. However, time (and the Caribbean humidity) have damaged many of the writer’s books and papers. Now, a Boston-based foundation is helping to conserve Papa’s property, with help from none other than former TV host Bob Vila. […]
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Paper Trumpets #26: Famous Myths of the Golden Age
This is part of the mystery and sometimes frustration of doing collage—trying to remember where things came from.
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The Rumpus Interview with Brian Shawver
Author Brian Shawver talks about his new book, Danger on the Page, his novel Aftermath, MFA programs, and why it’s a good thing that writing never stops being hard work.
...moreThe Sci-Fi “Code”
For Electric Literature, Ryan Britt interviews Cuban sci-fi novelist Yoss. Their discussion covers the influence of heavy metal on Yoss’s fiction, as well as how science fiction can work as “code” for contemporary social issues: In Cuba, on the other hand, it is normal that if one deals directly with the most critical points of the “real […]
...moreThe Politics of Fiction
Fiction written under an authoritarian or totalitarian government often dares readers to view the work as a critique of that society. In a review of two science fiction works by Cuban authors, Electric Literature takes a look at the surprising connection between oppressive political ideologies and fantastical worlds in fiction.
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The Saturday Rumpus Essay: Reading Don Quijote with My Mother
“That’s the anthem I would have sung at my original graduation if the university had stayed open,” my mother said.
...moreA Treacherous Crossroads
For The Millions, Bill Morris reflects on the documentary Havana Motor Club, and his own trip to Cuba in 1998, noting how the country is now getting “ready to navigate a treacherous crossroads—the place where communism and capitalism intersect and collide.”
...moreThe Vibrant History of Cuba
I feel like if you look at the history of Cuba, it’s always been a tumultuous one, even going back to Columbus, right? It always seems to have been a place that is sort of struggling to gain its footing in the world. So it’s just — its history to me is so vibrant and […]
...moreFetishizing Cuba
For The New Republic, Ryan Kearney responds to those claiming that American tourism and investment will ruin Cuba’s romanticism: If you visit Cuba to puff cigars, get drunk on rum-and-cokes or mojitos, read Hemingway, and fetishize the country’s dilapidation with your brand-new Canon Rebel, you just might miss [its] uglier side.
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The Sunday Rumpus Interview: Emily Parker
“If you are a critic of the Chinese government, it’s not easy to organize a physical gathering. Beijing cracks down hard on that kind of thing. But online, critics find they are not alone.”
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Searching for Santería
Isnael felt spirits. That was how he first realized he had a calling, and that it was Santería.
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