Mariel, Revista de Literatura y Arte (magazine of Literature and Art)
I offer here English translations of MARIEL magazine of Literature and Art (Mariel, Revista de Literatura y Arte) published from 1983-1985 by Cuban exiles, ‘Marielitos’, including Juan Abreu, Reinaldo Arenas, Luis de la Paz, Reinaldo García Ramos, Roberto Valero, René Cifuentes, Marcia Margado and Carlos Victoria, and illustrated by stunning abstract artists such as Jorge Camacho and María Elena Badías Valero.
To do this I’ve had to create my own digital text versions - in the 1980s it was a printed magazine, so only scanned images exist online. (See for example Rialta (https://rialta.org/expediente-revista-mariel-1983-1985/) and Ameríca LEE (https://americalee.cedinci.org/portfolio-items/mariel/)). Text recognition apps and translation apps help, but it’s still hours and hours of work checking and correcting the text.
I’m taking on this labour because this magazine is so important. The Mariel boatlift that allowed hundreds of thousands to flee the Cuban dictatorship was a unique and extraordinary event in humanity’s history. Its lessons are just as relevant today and the English-speaking world needs to hear them. And, of course, Cuba itself.
These fragile pages gave a voice to the voiceless - the most creative minds of a generation who in their own country had been censored, imprisoned, beaten or killed for the great fear of all tyrants - free speech.
Writing saved them. The passion you can feel leaping from these words and scorching the wall behind you kept them alive, kept them human. It gave them more than hope, it gave them a weapon to fight back.
That a displaced tribe who were labelled as unwanted scum chose to create an empire of culture and art in defiance of their tormentors is truly heroic. But there’s an even more compelling reason. These people could write. They could write. They deserve to be read.
S.J. (https://www.twitter.com/drummingasart)
