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In Cuba
Cardenal, In Cuba. The Nicaraguan Poet-Priest muses over Cuba
- GenresNonfictionHistory
340 pages, Paperback
First published June 1, 1974
6 people are currently reading
104 people want to read
About the author
Ernesto Cardenal
258 books76 followersReverend Father Ernesto Cardenal Martínez was a Nicaraguan Catholic priest, poet, and politician. He was a liberation theologian and the founder of the primitivist art community in the Solentiname Islands, where he lived for more than ten years (1965–1977). A former member of the Nicaraguan Sandinistas (he left the party in the early 1990s), he was Nicaragua's minister of culture from 1979 to 1987.
His earlier poems focused on life and love. However, some works, such as "Zero Hour," had a direct correlation to his Marxist political ideas, being tied to the assassination of guerrilla leader Augusto César Sandino. Cardenal's poetry also was heavily influenced by his unique Catholic ideology, mainly liberation theology. Some of his later works were heavily influenced by his understanding of science and evolution, though still in dialogue with his earlier Marxist and Catholic material.--excerpted from Wikipedia
His earlier poems focused on life and love. However, some works, such as "Zero Hour," had a direct correlation to his Marxist political ideas, being tied to the assassination of guerrilla leader Augusto César Sandino. Cardenal's poetry also was heavily influenced by his unique Catholic ideology, mainly liberation theology. Some of his later works were heavily influenced by his understanding of science and evolution, though still in dialogue with his earlier Marxist and Catholic material.--excerpted from Wikipedia
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
January 29, 2014
Ernesto Cardenal recounts the places he visited, people he met, and conversations he had during a three month stay in Cuba in 1970. He truly brings to life the experiences, thoughts, and hopes of Cubans from a wide range of backgrounds (and of various political/religious leanings). This is not a celebration of the Revolution with bias or agenda; he includes many criticisms voiced by those he met, but - as is stressed by many - those who criticize and critique are the true revolutionaries, constantly carrying on the Revolution and working to make it better.
As a liberation theologian and Catholic priest/poet, Cardenal focuses a great deal on the relationship between the true message of Christianity and the goals of the Revolution (which he sees as inextricably linked). He also includes poetry from Cuban poets throughout. This book provides a beautiful means to better understand ‘lived’ socialism. Many passages really stuck with me and moved me, here is one in which Cardenal describes his first impressions of Havana:
"Everyone in the streets was well dressed, not some with haughty luxury and others in rags. And this seemed to me very joyful. In the vicinity of the great hotels, the National, the Capri, the Havana Libre, the streets were filled with people, but nobody was buying or selling anything. People were strolling through the streets. They were walking slowly, taking a walk; nobody chasing after money. No face was strained by poverty... And it seemed to me that a city like that ought to be called a joyful city. Around this city there was no encirclement of misery, and it seemed to me that this also made Havana a very joyful city."
As a liberation theologian and Catholic priest/poet, Cardenal focuses a great deal on the relationship between the true message of Christianity and the goals of the Revolution (which he sees as inextricably linked). He also includes poetry from Cuban poets throughout. This book provides a beautiful means to better understand ‘lived’ socialism. Many passages really stuck with me and moved me, here is one in which Cardenal describes his first impressions of Havana:
"Everyone in the streets was well dressed, not some with haughty luxury and others in rags. And this seemed to me very joyful. In the vicinity of the great hotels, the National, the Capri, the Havana Libre, the streets were filled with people, but nobody was buying or selling anything. People were strolling through the streets. They were walking slowly, taking a walk; nobody chasing after money. No face was strained by poverty... And it seemed to me that a city like that ought to be called a joyful city. Around this city there was no encirclement of misery, and it seemed to me that this also made Havana a very joyful city."
December 27, 2020
Un buen libro, cálido. Es la oportunidad perfecta para acercarse a otra realidad, otro país y otras ideas. Le diría a cualquier persona con interés en política y en política humana, en socialismo pues, que si tiene la oportunidad, lea este libro. A quienes les interesa la literatura también claro, Cardenal fue un tremendo escritor.
August 5, 2024
Una mirada a la cuba de los 70, con muchos visos al inicio de la revolución. Aquí podremos leer todo lo que el autor escucho en cuba, bueno y malo. Además de una mirada a los personajes de la revolución cubana y el por qué de sus actuares y pensares.
November 18, 2023
I have a long-standing argument with my wife. “What is the worst character flaw?” I ask her. “Rage” she answers. “Because when you lose control, you destroy everything indiscriminately.” “But rage,” I give my time-worn rebuttal, “can be useful. To rage against poverty or violence or injustice; to rage against harm done to those we love. To rage against someone who attacks us. That gives us energy and resolve. Envy,” I go on, “envy is the worst character flaw. Envy is a toxic green cancer, a mold that rots away everything.”
I just finished the travelogue “In Cuba” by Ernesto Cardenal, Nicaragua’s (in)famous communist priest, de-frocked by John Paul for taking a ministerial position in the godless communist government of the pedophile Daniel Ortega, and re-frocked by current-Pope Francis (I’ll let y’all guess why…). Cardenal went to Cuba on revolutionary tourism, to see firsthand the glories of the redistributionist society of Fidel Castro and his merry band of thieves and murderers.
There’s something particularly gross about Latin American banana communism. It is different from the USSR’s variety. One could even be impressed by the extraordinary industrialization of early Soviet communism – their answer, 60 years later, to England’s industrial revolution; and a revolution equally impressive. I’m not justifying the “evil empire”, but having lived in the post-Soviet Union it’s impossible not to tip your hat at what they achieved. But banana communism is totally uninspiring. A bunch of miserable mediocre motherfuckers bitching about those who were more successful while sitting around in stolen houses, sharing baggies of beans and writing crappy poetry or singing pouty songs.
Fidel Castro’s Cuba pretended to be bees, all a-buzz and united in one glorious purpose of building the hive. But what they really were, were vultures picking over an increasingly-pestilent and rotted carcass of a dead country. Chavez’s Venezuela was like that — the first years, while he was leveraging the moribund oil company and redistributing the industries of a middle-class country, one could be confused that the “revolution” was working. But 15 years after the oil money ran out and the companies ran aground; after the carcass is picked clean there is nothing to see except misery and no feelings left except contempt.
Cardenal, however, is guilty of a greater sin. He was a Trappist monk who studied under Thomas Merton and went to found a socialist peasant ‘paradise’ on an island in Lake Nicaragua, called Solentiname. “The Gospel in Solentiname” is a devotional of sorts for Liberation Theology, Latin American Catholicism’s singular addition to our community of faith (I’ll review these books later, I do have some thoughts about them). Christianity should let us think about more than our poverty; Jesus himself taught us to find the deep wellsprings of generosity and humanity in our own misery.
My problem is, of course, that there was nothing epic in Cardenal’s experience of Cuba’s revolution. There was nothing there about wonder; about the transcendental; about the metaphysical — our ancient faith that started in a dusty village beside a little lake 2000 years ago went on to inspire something magnificent. The great church. The most missionary and mysterious “Church of the East” — and gave us the Hagia Sophia and da Vinci and laid the foundation for the Judeo/Christian world order in which we live now. A world-altering idea. But Cardenal’s “Liberation Theology” only festers with envy, channeling the bitter who just want to live in somebody’s bigger house. There are no divine motivations to be found, only the most ordinary and base of humanity.
That’s all I have. I don’t know what I was expecting, but “In Cuba” made Cardenal — who may have been remarkable, likely could have even been extraordinary — into a much smaller person. That is what the cancer of envy does. Beware.
I just finished the travelogue “In Cuba” by Ernesto Cardenal, Nicaragua’s (in)famous communist priest, de-frocked by John Paul for taking a ministerial position in the godless communist government of the pedophile Daniel Ortega, and re-frocked by current-Pope Francis (I’ll let y’all guess why…). Cardenal went to Cuba on revolutionary tourism, to see firsthand the glories of the redistributionist society of Fidel Castro and his merry band of thieves and murderers.
There’s something particularly gross about Latin American banana communism. It is different from the USSR’s variety. One could even be impressed by the extraordinary industrialization of early Soviet communism – their answer, 60 years later, to England’s industrial revolution; and a revolution equally impressive. I’m not justifying the “evil empire”, but having lived in the post-Soviet Union it’s impossible not to tip your hat at what they achieved. But banana communism is totally uninspiring. A bunch of miserable mediocre motherfuckers bitching about those who were more successful while sitting around in stolen houses, sharing baggies of beans and writing crappy poetry or singing pouty songs.
Fidel Castro’s Cuba pretended to be bees, all a-buzz and united in one glorious purpose of building the hive. But what they really were, were vultures picking over an increasingly-pestilent and rotted carcass of a dead country. Chavez’s Venezuela was like that — the first years, while he was leveraging the moribund oil company and redistributing the industries of a middle-class country, one could be confused that the “revolution” was working. But 15 years after the oil money ran out and the companies ran aground; after the carcass is picked clean there is nothing to see except misery and no feelings left except contempt.
Cardenal, however, is guilty of a greater sin. He was a Trappist monk who studied under Thomas Merton and went to found a socialist peasant ‘paradise’ on an island in Lake Nicaragua, called Solentiname. “The Gospel in Solentiname” is a devotional of sorts for Liberation Theology, Latin American Catholicism’s singular addition to our community of faith (I’ll review these books later, I do have some thoughts about them). Christianity should let us think about more than our poverty; Jesus himself taught us to find the deep wellsprings of generosity and humanity in our own misery.
My problem is, of course, that there was nothing epic in Cardenal’s experience of Cuba’s revolution. There was nothing there about wonder; about the transcendental; about the metaphysical — our ancient faith that started in a dusty village beside a little lake 2000 years ago went on to inspire something magnificent. The great church. The most missionary and mysterious “Church of the East” — and gave us the Hagia Sophia and da Vinci and laid the foundation for the Judeo/Christian world order in which we live now. A world-altering idea. But Cardenal’s “Liberation Theology” only festers with envy, channeling the bitter who just want to live in somebody’s bigger house. There are no divine motivations to be found, only the most ordinary and base of humanity.
That’s all I have. I don’t know what I was expecting, but “In Cuba” made Cardenal — who may have been remarkable, likely could have even been extraordinary — into a much smaller person. That is what the cancer of envy does. Beware.
August 9, 2022
Even a raging capitalist would enjoy this book.
July 29, 2017
Nicaraguan poet Ernesto Cardenal goes to Cuba in the 1970s, just a few years after the death of Che Guevara. The book is a compilation of journal entries about his experiences and observations while in socialist Cuba where he officially meets circles of fellow intellectuals, writers, and functionaries. But Cardenal also took this visit as an opportunity to get to know the real conditions and thoughts of ordinary people from a wide variety of backgrounds, from workers, peasants, militia, women, youth, and students. What emerges from Cardenal’s notes is a truthful picture of life in Cuba, with all its merits in terms of uplifting the well being of the people as well as the problems and challenges of a society building socialism. Cardenal does not one-sidedly praise everything Cuban, but neither does it resort to the subjective demonization common in mainstream Western accounts of Cuba. Plus we have lovely poems from his friends as well as quotations by Fidel, Che and other heroes of the Cuban revolution inserted in between his reflections. Some of the nice things about Cuba during this time: at the end of the day, leftover vread is given away to avoid having stale bread the next day. Back then everyone receives the same amount of food rations except for the sick, the elderly, pregnant, and nursing women. No one goes hungry! Also, unlike in the Soviet model as followed by the Eastern European people’s republics which made unsparing use of material incentives to spur production, the Cubans realized such measure’s tendency to promote individualism and in the long run capitalism and hence favored the raising of social consciousness. This is surely one of the legacies of Che Guevara. Cardenal also recounts a particularly inspiring visit to a people’s court. Contrary to Western cliché about kangaroo courts and firing squads, we see committees of people from the community deciding on domestic conflicts and petty crimes in a just way and with amusing resolutions centered on reeducation rather than on punishment. Also, Cardenal amusingly observes that the bookstores are always empty: every time they have new books, people immediately buy everything! Cardenal’s In Cuba has a wealth of anecdotes about life in socialist Cuba in the 1970s. But I’m not sure how much of this remains true with the collapse of the Soviet bloc in the early 1990s. I’ll probably get back to this in another post soon.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews