Cuban writer Susana Camino has lived almost three fourths of her life in Germany. She left the island when she was 19, and not even then has she stopped feeling for it. Enterprising by vocation and need, she has her own learning Spanish agency, where she carries out several functions. She recognizes that there at times that this competes with her profession as a writer, linking one day with the other, until she is again in front of her students. In the midst of that time conflict, Camino has developed a notable literary career which has led her to present her first novel, La salahombres, in Cuba – where it was published by Extramuros – as well as in Germany and Switzerland. I gather that your career as a writer starts and develops in Germany. How easy or difficult is it for a Caribbean writer to insert herself in the German literary world? It wasn’t easy. Actually, I started the career on the island with the presentation of my first novel, La salahombres (Extramuros publishers, 2015). But it was a difficult challenge to get to present it. I still don’t know from where I got so much strength and optimism....

Curator Alejandro de La Fuente and visual artist Juan Roberto Diago have achieved an unprecedented event: presenting in the premises of Harvard University the exhibit “Diago: The Pasts of this Afro-Cuban Present”, a retrospective of the work of the artist. Diago is the first Cuban to have a solo exhibition in this University. He is recalled in Cuba for his visual work and also for his appearance in the documentary Raza (Erick Corvalán, 2008), where he expresses his ideas about the representation of black bodies in the media. The artist has continued his work abroad and following his footsteps we found this exhibition inaugurated last February 2 in the Ethelbert Cooper Gallery of African and Afro-American Art, where it will remain open until next May. Photo: Courtesy of the artist How did this opportunity come up to exhibit in Harvard University? The work that the institution carries out has a lot to do with my discourse as an artist, and Henry Luis Gates as well as Alejandro de La Fuente, directors of Harvard’s Afro-Latin American Research Institute, knew of my work. Alejandro has had important exhibitions in this field like “Queloides y Drapetomania,”in which I have been present, until one...

Some months ago news started to make the rounds of the webs: DJ Leydis, that Cuban whom many rap followers had lost sight of, would perform in the White House for President Barack Obama. Between expectations and astonishment, the indicated day arrived and many of us followed her live broadcasts, cell phone in hand, until, after a while and when it was calm, we asked her for this interview for OnCuba. Who is and to what does DJ Leydis devote herself? Above all I devote myself to raising my only daughter because I’m a single mother, an emigrant and in addition black. Then I devote myself to music. I identify myself as DJ, I take happiness to my public with contemporary combinations of several genres like the Latin flavor, R&B, hip hop and roots reggae blends. I have had the opportunity to open sets for different stars like Erykah Badu, Yassin Bay aka, Mos Def, Dead Prez, Bomba Estéreo, Ana Tijoux, DJ Toni Toca. In addition I have worked with Krudxs Cubensi and Los Rakas, so I have lived very interesting moments in my career as a DJ. Photo: Babylon’s Train. Just a few months ago you were invited to...

The fifth edition of the Dutch Film Week will take place in Havana from October 24 to 31 at the Charles Chaplin film. Coordinated by the Cinematheque of Cuba and with the collaboration of the Embassy of the Netherlands the sample includes thirteen films, nine of them produced between 2010 and 2014. At the opening, scheduled for this Friday, October 24 at 8:30 pm., The price of sugar (2013), a film by Jean van de Velde, based on the bestseller by Cynthia McLeod, will have its premiere. The same is situated in the slave society of Surinam in 1747. Jean van de Velde and actress Yootha Wong-Loi-Sing are expected to be present at the opening session. During the seven days of Dutch cinema they will screen El Profe (2012) version of the book by Mirjam Oldenhave that speaks of the special relationship between a teacher and one of his students. They will hold a tribute to the known filmmaker Pim de la Parra (Suriname, 1940) with the presentation of Parradoja (2010), documentary film offers a journey through the interesting and controversial life of the filmmaker. The film Odyssey of Love (1987), by the same director, will be shown for the...

If there is a bone of contention in the Cuban sports field, that is Industriales squad . No one can understand the passions aroused by the team from the capital among people who follow baseball in Cuba. The writer Leonardo Padura confesses: "belonging to a sports team is like a curse that haunts you for a lifetime." In my opinion, sport rivalry has created in Cuba two types of fans: pro and against Industriale s. The first group is clear, they are those who chant: "Blue is the sky, blue is the sea ...”, but the latter are those who, while not baseball fans, def end other teams when playing against Industriales. "Blue is the sky, blue is the sea ..." / Photo: Taken from the Facebook page of the documentary. Different generations of Industriales team veterans went to celebrate the 50 years of the foundation of the Havana squad to the United States, specifically to the cities of Miami and Tampa, where a considerable number of Cubans live, with the intention to meet again with their former teammates who do not live in Cuba and perform with them some sports matches. However, in the called "capital of Cuban exiles",...

She had just turned 10 years old, when on August 13, 1961 the Berlin Wall was built. In just 24 hours hundreds of miles of physical barrier rose, with the intention, it was said, to avoid Western aggression. Esmeralda was five years old and was living in Hamburg with her family. Born in Havana, but a work contract of her musician father would take them to Europe. News about the construction works made them remain in front of that TV. The success of Cuba Chachachá Orchestra, a group directed by his father, had allowed them to be one of the first families to have television in Germany, when perhaps they were the only Cubans living in that country. Kuba was the brand name of that device, of course in black and white, every day shared distressing news about the ban, now converted into a wall, held by citizens of East Berlin and the GDR to cross into enemy territory: RFA. The context of the "cold war" always was a threat of a third contest of international scope. Germany had been devastated in World War II; constructive recovery was almost immediate, but the psychological and moral would take longer. They knew...

Fernando Calderon Boris worked in Cuba on community cultural development, specifically in the municipalities of Cerro and Centro Habana. His natural environment, however, has always been the kitchen. He is a renowned Chef formed in 1994 by the School of Higher Studies in Hotel and Tourism in Havana and has been awarded in international first class events. Calderon is also a student of Anthropology and has been engaged in research on the influence of sacred meals in the formation of the culinary heritage of countries belonging to the African Diaspora in America, Brazil and Cuba, specifically Yoruba origin groups, work for which he was recognized by UNESCO in 1999. These experiences as a cultural promoter, Chef and researcher led him to found, along with journalist Eliana Alves Sotos, the " Consulado Cultural Cubano en el Maracana", in the city of Rio de Janeiro. What is the Consulado Cultural Cubano, what does it do? The Consulado Cultural Cubano en el Maracaná is a project of cultural and artistic exchange created by the journalist Eliana Alves Sotos, which has as main objectives to stimulate exchange between Cuban and Brazilian peoples, as well as keep alive the traditions of the Island among Cubans...

The work of Cuban artist Angel Alonso will be presented at the Latin American art exhibition Masters of the Imagination, to be held in New York from September 16 to October 6, 2014. Masters of the Imagination is a group exhibition that has had previous issues and is a specific proposal by the Agora Gallery to show the work of Latin American artists that are part of its catalog. Agora Gallery is an art gallery founded in 1984 that is dedicated to promoting American and international artists that foster social awareness and promote the use of art to help those in need. The institution also publishes the ARTisSpectrum magazine and sponsors ARTmine.com. For Angel Alonso, is significant opportunity to be at the exhibition: "This is an elegant gallery, glamorous, very connected to collectors everywhere (...). They do everything with much preparation time, is a highly organized long process, resulting in an opening full of people really connected with the art world, "he told OnCuba. Alonso's work has been exhibited in countries like Italy, Spain, Mexico, Brazil and the United States. Earlier, in the 90s, the Center for Cuban Studies presented his work along many Cuban artists in the Metropolitan New...

It is a fact that, as in other cultural movements, women have struggled to be recognized within the hip hop culture. It has worked as discrimination within another; first they are excluded by the musical genre – it is known that the disadvantage of rap and other manifestations of that culture relative to other musical variants and then they are discriminate because of their gender. Perhaps many people allude as a reason the paradigm of masculinity within hip hop movement, despite being rebellious, in a sense reproduces hegemonic patterns. The women participating in the hip hop movement in Cuba have faced both exclusions. However, in recent years, with the first steps of the female band Instintos, their contributions to hip hop in Cuba started to be seen. Yamay Mejíias "Fina" Lourdes Suárez "La Cimarrona", Las Krudas, Las Positivas, La Reina and La Real, are some of the main representatives of the rap in the country that take on the genre as a form of expression that transcends musical creation. Hip hop is a tool for them to debate and for the political and social activism. In January 2014, the day of art and radical theory Contraxxyones: FeminisXs y Queeridad was...

Perhaps she envisaged the wave of self-employment. She did well in a job that can only be understood in the Cuban context during the 70’s and the 80’s. She was ahead almost by 30 years to our present reality, with the particular characteristic that today most of the people who do that job are men and don’t work in stores but in embassies, registry offices, etc. Yeyita “la colera” used to stand in line for other people. She was a beautiful mulatto woman, who always wore a wild flower behind her ear and religious necklaces as well as lot of powder around her neck. With dawn Yeyita would sit in the porch of her house in 17 Street. From there she would say good morning and wave good bye children to school and the older for work. That was her routine as long as there were no new items in the neighborhood stores. El Carrusel, the layette store, didn’t get too much attention at that time; there were vacuum flasks, little caps and clothes. Only when the store sold specific fabrics for making children’s diapers, or baby carriages and cradles, Yeyita would head to Dolores and 16. The rest of...

I have to confess I didn’t know Tony Romero, even though after going over his career I realized we had common elements regarding acquaintances and topics. I got in touch with him by the twists and turns of virtual relations, and then I learned about the documentary he produced on famous Cuban announcer Eduardo Rosillo, an emblematic voice of our radio. Tony Romero is currently living in Spain; he defines himself as “a black, Caribbean, Afro-Spanish manwho makes his own cinema, which comprises love for everything I am”. I know you have come a long way as director and scriptwriter and you have taken part in productions by other filmmakers like Gloria Rolando. Could you comment on your reasons for championing the afro-Spanish subject matter from the visual front? We have few spaces to talk about our issues, I have always been concerned about the spreading of our culture, our history which has not been told rightly, and I think it is not fair to keep our people in silence. That’s why, since more than 20 years ago, my main purpose has been to record our memories, our testimonies, documenting our history. We don’t have a long trajectory as other...

Next Saturday 28 is the 45thanniversary of the Stonewall Inn riots in New York City. The Arcoiris (Rainbow) Project, which works for the rights of LGTBI people, has arranged a Second Kissing for Diversity and Equality, in Havana’s Old Square, at 4:00 pm. In 2012,Arcoiris organized a similar activity in the nearby area of Havana’s Bus Station. We took this opportunity to interview Yasmin Silvia Portales Machado, manager and activist of the project, on the main purpose of this event. What activities has Arcoiris arranged on the occasion of June 28? This activity is not too expensive and can include large numbers of people, we have invited the LGBTI community and heterosexual allies that wish to celebrate the pleasure and right of love. At the same time, it is a political taunt because in Cuba public spaces are still for heterosexual people. Taking the streets, standardizing everyone’s right to act openly on broad day light, constitutes a serious political challengein our country. The call launched notes on the political nature of the activity and its articulation with the steps taken by different social actors for building a national culture that recognizes and celebrates the diversity of its citizens. In a...

The current situation of an important part of black and mixed blood people in Cuba, precise the design and implementation of economic measures capable of empowering families as a way to satisfy their basic needs. Support for the creation of jobs could be an effective measure to stimulate these processes. In the context of the consolidation of self-employment in Cuba, and given the recent approval of the new Foreign Investment Law, the creation of financing projects is a practical means of support to entrepreneurship. Alberto N. Jones is a Cuban who has lived for many years in the United States, from where he has provided ongoing humanitarian aid for decades to his people, and is now trying to push the Ave Fenix project as part of the Caribbean-American Foundation for Children which he presides. What is the purpose of this project? We want to encourage entrepreneurship in the black and mixed blood people in Cuba to promote small business creation and implementation of self-employment within the existing legal framework in the country, taking into account the new Foreign Investment Law. We are trying to manage resources to motivate people and related entities interested in making low-interest loans to these economic...

I have a relation with Gerardo Alfonso that began even before we met inperson. This poet Gerardo has indeed nourished my bond with him, which was idyllic by that time. It turned out that, in addition to his songs, a familiar relation and some common interests brought us together more than once. Despite geographical distance, this singer-songwriter agreed to answer a few questions for this interview, which allowed us to get and update on his plans and recall some memorable moments of the New Cuban Trova movement and also think about what it means to produce an album in Cuba. “Yo te quería María“, “Sábanas blancas”and “Quisiera” are some of those songs that make us go back in time by just remembering one word. I have the feeling you are a singer-songwriter of famous songs rather than popular albums. Am I wrong? What do you have to say about it? You are right. I’m the result of my songs rather than my albums and I will tell you why, assuming this is of interest for the readers. Some time ago Cuba lost the profession of producing records. I cannot tell you when or for how long but I dare to...

I met Barbaro ( el Urbano) Vargas four years ago during a competition of MCs that was held in Havana. I saw him several times also in the Pa ' rriba , an event that took place in the basketball court located in 23 and C streets, in Vedado , once a month , and were organized by the Cuban Rap Agency . At that time he was about to end his college studies and among those followers of rap music he was well known , especially for the way he appropriated the stage, by the freshness of his lyrics, energy and flow that characterized him . Now the young rapper is on the list of the Cuban Rap Agency. His most recent album, already the fourth of them, La Barbarie has collaborations with renowned Cuban rappers like Charlie Mucha Rima , Etian Brebaje Man and Anderson and music production names such as Dj Rafox , Bi , Dj Lapiz and El Prófugo. About how this multi-award MC develops his career within a Cuban musical stage that is not sufficiently conducive to the "comfortable" insertion rap, we talked in this interview. Who is Barbaro (el Urbano) Vargas? Barbaro (el Urbano)...

In Cuba everyone knows Osdalgia not only as a singer but also as an actress, writer and television host. I personally witnessed one of her concerts in La Cabaña fortress on the occasion of an International Book Fair. However, I had this urge for interviewing her a year ago, when I had recently arrived in Hannover, and joined her music to lessen my nostalgia. I found her latest albums on the internet and I was shocked by the way music can be commercialized nowadays by means of online platformsas CD Baby. This interview is about Osdalgia’s latest album and current projects. Between 2000 and 2003 you moved frombeing “Cuba’s New Voice” to “the Daughter of the Buena Vista Social Club”. Now, after ten years, what do you think is left from that period? My career has had several stages, which have been visibly different. Since my debut in Havana –I unexpectedly became part of a musical and dancing show in 1992—till 1999, I learned about music, I learned to sing and to hear my voice and to personalize it. It was a stage of forced steps and fear. I was some sort of compass without a needle pointing at the...

Day against homophobia in the UNEAC The national headquarters of the Union of Writers and Artists of Cuba (UNEAC), presents as usual an interesting program for the celebration in Cuba of the Day against Homophobia. This year's activities will be held on Friday, May 9, and will be dedicated to the art of transformism and the 20 years of the premiere in Cuba's of The Public, by Federico García Lorca, by Carlos Alfonso Diaz and Theater group The Public. In UNEAC´s Villena room, you can witness the approach to the issue of sexual and gender diversity from several events: the performing arts, literature and audiovisual. The first morning panel entitled "Cross-Dressing, identity and show", will be head by the journalist Marta María Ramírez and J. Lázaro González, director of the documentary "masks at the edge of the stage (proscenio)," still in production. Also participating transformism interviewed for the film. Literature is one of the demonstrations on this day, with the presentation of the novel La noria, from the Cuban writer Ahmel Echevarría, Italo Calvino Prize in 2012; Hombres sin mujer, by Carlos Montenegro. Rafael de Aguila and Caridad Tamayo, respectively, will present such books. During midday it will be screened...

A month ago, a German-Dutch friend, with whom I dance every fortnight some salsa, said she had tickets for the presentation, in the city of Hannover, of a Cuban dance company. Ivon could not remember exactly the name of the group; she said had just read in the newspaper an article that convinced her to attend the event. She had noticed that a piece titled Mambo 3XXI would be interpreted, and as we have a move by the same name in our salsa group, she wanted to see that such a thing danced by the "real Cuba". Of course Esmeralda and I immediately came up with a brilliant idea and arrived home looking for relevant information on the Internet. When we confirmed it was Danza Contemporanea de Cuba (DCC), headed by Miguel A. Iglesias Ferrer, I told her: we need to see it. You'll love it. Then I remembered that on December 24, 2012 I had seen a DCC, in a kind of self - gift that I got for Christmas in the Great Theater of Havana and was roundly impressed by that experienced youth that danced breaking all physical and biological laws. We were fortunate to be able to...

Cuba will host the regional Conference of the International Association of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex People for Latin America and the Caribbean (ILGALAC)from May 6 through 10 hoping to bring together hundreds of activists from Latin America and the Caribbean interested in a common program on people’s rights. On the Cuban side, the National Center of Sexual Education (CENESEX by its acronym in Spanish) is incharge of the organization of the event, which will be attended by activists from community networks and other projects in addition to the said governmental institution. Maykel Gonzalez Viverois a Cuban journalist and activist against homophobia and for the rights of LGTBI people in Cuba. His work is perceived in his blog El Nicatlope where he usually tackles these issues. Gonzalez Vivero will be among the activists representing the Rainbow (Arcoiris in Spanish) anti-capitalist and independent project. In view of the above, the following interview was in order: How do you assess the fact that Cuba had been chosen as host for ILGALAC’s regional conference despite Cuba’s o obvious backwardness in contrast with other nations of the region in terms of LGTBI’s right? ILGALAC is enjoying the hospitality of a committed institution with...

Wanda (Odalys Cuesta), PasaKruda (Odaymara Cuesta ) and Pelusa (Olivia Prendes) have a long history in the development of cultural anti-establishment projects, which includes the creation along with Llane Alexis Domínguez of the first queer and vegan art group in Cuban in 1996. Then, in 1999, Krudas Cubensi was born. Krudas broke every traditional ways of making rap music and mostly men supremacy in the Cuban stages. According to Ariel Fernandez Díaz: Krudas arrived to tell us that our speech is missing something, that there are certain ingredients missing and that they have whatwe lack and that they are going to stand by us in that battlebut we have to listen to them. I believe this work is important because Krudas succeed in raising awareness on topics we don’t want to discuss or we feel awkward when we have to talk about them. Krudas, with its constant presence through their songs, their performances, their activism, are making us take a look at social spheres where we don’t have any knowledge about or we don’t have the will to look at. In that first stage Krudas focused on Afro Cuban elements, expressed in their appearance, women with dreadlocks and clothes that...

The Supercrónica Obsesión band was founded on June 25, 1996. Trapped by the warm and new influences of rap, its members Alexey Rodríguez aka…el tipo este.. and Magia López rapidly joined the vanguard that stared the process of appropriation and definition of the genre within the Cuban culture. Since then, their members became loyal and proud representatives of afro descendants, which goesfar beyond their roots, it is in their aesthetics and their art. This band specially stands out for its ascending course, which is dedicated to what they call “Afro Cuban thinking”. Obsesion’s music reflects an interesting balance of genre and a stylistic and musical diversity, which moves from the work with elements of jazz, Cuban music and a wholerange of trends from African origins present in Cuba and Latin America to the creation of diverse lyrics, in which the message always chronically proposes changes of ways of acting and stereotyped attitudes. Along its career, Obsesion has successfully combined good art, humor, and new desires with activism, communitarian work and the struggle for a better world. The band has not only received important recognition and awards in festivals, but it has also performed in Cuba and abroad, along with remarkable...

On April 8th, the In the Sea of the Antilles: X International Colloquium of Music and Poetry Festival Nicolás Guillén, 2014, will be open. In the Aula Magna of the University of Havana (UH) Dr. Yolanda Wood, professor of the Faculty of Arts and Letters and director of the Center for the Study of Caribbean of Casa de las Americas will give the inaugural lecture of the event. Also the organizers invited to the inaugural meeting the prominent Cuban pianist Aldo Lopez - Gavilan Junco and maestro Luis Carbonell . Organized by the foundation that bears the name of the author of "Motivos de Son" this event intends to reflect on the work of the National Poet Nicolás Guillén. This time it will take palce in the framework of the 80th anniversary of West Indies Ltd. which was published in 1934. Thus, the International Colloquium and Music and Poetry Festival will be dedicated to elaborate on this poem book and cultural and geographical context of its first release. The theoretical meeting will host lectures, special presentations, and panels on the relationship of Nicolás Guillén with the Caribbean, from the poetic point of view, and also from his own experience of...

The Cuban intellectual Georgina Herrera (Havana, 1936) has received the Mackandal Award from the Teatro Cimarron Company, directed by poet and playwright Alberto Curbelo . Previously this award had been granted to intellectuals like Nancy Morejon, Rogelio Martinez Fure and Gerardo Fullera Leon. During the recent XVI BarrioCuento event, organized by that theater company , it was decided to honor on this occasion a woman who has been considered one of the most important voices in contemporary Cuban poetry . GH, published in 1962 by Editorial El Puente, opened the list of books coming out of the Herrera’s pen. Then came Gentes y cosas, Granos de sol y luna, Grande es el tiempo, Gustadas sensaciones, and Golpeando la memoria. The latter is her autobiographical text written along the historian Daysi Rubiera, maximum exponent of Cuban women’s biographical literature. All Georgina Herrera books have been published by Ediciones Union and curiosity she always keeps the letter G in the beginning of the title. Despite being well known as a poet, Herrera’s literature also includes scripts for radio and theater. All of them as a whole have been concentrated flatly on the experiences, hopes and concerns of the author about African women...

Yasmin Silvia Portales Machado is a 34 year old Cuban - I say that because she does not care, but she has the wisdom that she has been probably growing from other lives. Or maybe it was his mother, also a learned woman, who most influenced her in order to link the impossible. Thus, this Cuban woman moves between Marxist thought and feminist activism, stopping in her iconoclastic heterosexuality, defined by herself, and her racial identity. In her blog, one of the most recognized in Cuba , which is the most direct form of her participation in the debates taking place in the country despite lack of connection , she states in the introduction: " Living in Cuba and being Queer was a choice . My life is a fine balance between the exercise of motherhood, feminism and critical Marxism. " And in that same space that doubles as bottle thrown into the sea, she wrote one of the strongest posts that revealed her feelings with regard to the exercise of motherhood. These and other features of her status as Cuban citizen have placed her as one of the panel members , residents on the island, at the conference "...

The " U.S. / Cuba Relations, the Second Obama Administration: The Cuban - American Community and changes in Cuba - Building bridges for better relations" conference was held in Miami this weekend convened by CAFE (Cuban Americans for Engagement) and in collaboration with other organizations: FORNORM (for Normalization), Cuba Educational Travel and Generación Cambio Cubano (GCC) . The event brought together intellectuals, activists and entrepreneurs, Cuban -Americans, Cubans and Americans, in order to discuss relations between the two governments and peoples, especially among Cubans of both sides of Straits of Florida. The conference takes place in the context of recent approaches from prominent Cuban exiles in the United States to the island, and the gradual changes being made by the Cuban government, with a highlight on the new Immigration Law, implemented in January 2013 and the real possibilities of foreign investment in the island, whose magnanimous evidence is the opening of the Port of Mariel, in joint administration with Brazil. “One problem with the Foreign Investment Law of 1996, it gives discretion to the government to decide whether it approves a case or not “political scientist Arturo Lopez -Levy, a member of CAFÉ, said. This has meant that Cuban residents...