Cubainformación
The Havana-based Social Sciences Publishing House has just released the book “A bordo de una nave llamada Cuba¨ ( “Aboard a Ship Called Cuba,” ), by Cuban researcher and essayist Enrique Ubieta Gómez. This work brings together chronicles and essays written over more than two decades, reflecting, from lived experience, on the Cuban Revolution, the cultural war, and the ethical, political, and social challenges of the present.
The book can be downloaded for free in PDF format from Cubainformación.
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Download the book in PDF
The book is preceded by an extensive and insightful prologue by Spanish writer Belén Gopegui, who situates the work beyond the analysis of Cuban reality. For Gopegui, Ubieta’s texts address universal questions: what kind of life is it possible to “want to want” in a world marked by injustice, ecological collapse, and the structural violence of capitalism? From this perspective, Cuba appears as a concrete space where ideas don’t float in the air, but are embodied in facts, contradictions, resistance, and historical decisions shaped, for more than six decades, by US aggression and the blockade.
In his preliminary explanation, Enrique Ubieta uses a powerful metaphor: Cuba as a ship that is neither stopped nor adrift, but continues sailing, despite attacks, attrition, and attempts to force its surrender through hunger, disinformation, and media warfare. The author emphasizes that the conflict is not only political, but also cultural: a confrontation between two conceptions of life, that of “being” versus that of “having.” Therefore, the book does not merely describe isolated events, but rather proposes its own narrative, distinct from the dominant story of the mainstream media, for understanding Cuban reality within the context of the contemporary world.
Aboard a Ship Called Cuba brings together essays and articles published between 1999 and the present, arranged chronologically, that address ideological debates, controversies, everyday scenes, and international experiences, such as the author’s accompaniment of Cuban medical brigades in Latin America, Africa, and Europe. Along this journey appear both the anonymous “heroes” of contemporary Cuba and the internal tensions, disappointments, mistakes, and risks of capitalist regeneration within socialism, without abandoning a clear commitment to the revolutionary spirit.
Enrique Ubieta Gómez (Havana, 1958) is a researcher, essayist, and journalist. He has directed key institutions and journals of Cuban cultural and political thought, such as the Center for Martí Studies, the Cuban Film Archive, Contracorriente, La Calle del Medio, Cuba Socialista, and currently, the journal Revolución y Cultura. Author of more than twenty books, he has received numerous national awards and distinctions and is one of the most persistent voices in the defense of the Cuban Revolution in the realm of ideas.
The publication and free access to this book constitute an invitation to critical reading and honest debate about Cuba, not from the noise of propaganda or disinformation, but from a committed reflection that, as Belén Gopegui points out, transforms knowledge into action and raises questions that also challenge those who view the island from abroad.
[ SOURCE: cubainformacion.tv ]
