Cuban Blogger Voices Her Generation

What’s the Latest Development?

From Havana, Yoani Sánchez blogs about her intimate experiences as a Cuban on her website GenerationY. “‘This country is so saturated with contaminated, corrupted political discourse, with empty pamphleteering, that I wanted to explore other areas,’ Ms. Sánchez, 35, said last month in a telephone interview from Havana, interrupted several times when the connection broke down. ‘I write about my interior life, the intimate sphere. It’s the sentiments of one person but sums up the reality of many people and shows just how sick this society is.'”

What’s the Big Idea?

“Globally, Ms. Sánchez’s blog, whose name refers to the Russian-sounding names beginning with ‘Y’ that many Cubans her age were given at the height of their nation’s dependency on the Soviet Union, is available in a score of languages and gets up to 14 million visits a month. Within Cuba, though, the dictatorship of Fidel and Raúl Castro has from the start sought to silence her and prevent other Cubans from reading what she calls her ‘little vignettes of reality’. … The Castro dictatorship has responded to her challenge by doubling down.”