We Write Cuba from Afar, Too

On Cuban Culture Day, Tu Letra Online renews its founding commitment: to offer Cuban writers an alternative route to publication and help their work find readers. From Bayamo and elsewhere on the island to the places where those of us abroad now live, we continue to build a shared culture.

A manuscript can hold a city. Its pages have room for the rhythm of a conversation, a grandmother’s words, the memory of a street or a question that arose long after leaving. When that manuscript becomes a book and finds someone willing to read it, a Cuban experience enters into conversation with the world.

20 October invites us to recognise that work. For those of us who live far away but still identify as Cuban, the date has both personal and public significance. It reminds us of what we share and asks how we help keep it alive.

At Tu Letra Online, publishing is our answer. We began with the express intention of supporting Cuban writers by offering an online route to publication. That founding impulse is part of who we are and guides our commitment to the voices that place their trust in us.

Bayamo: memory at work

Cuban Culture Day commemorates the public singing of the Bayamo Anthem on 20 October 1868. Returning to Bayamo brings us close to a place where music, words and history became entwined in the nation’s memory. More on the commemoration and celebrations in Bayamo.

The announced programme for the 32nd Festival of Cuban Identity runs from 17 to 20 October 2026. Events include the Crucible of Cuban Nationhood symposium, Cuban and International Film Days, book launches, theatre premieres, concerts, exhibitions and cultural activities in local communities. A commemoration of the first public singing of the national anthem is planned for the 20th. The announced programme, reported by journalist Eugenio Pérez Almarales.

That variety points to something we believe in: culture stays alive when it has room to remember, create and debate. Writers, teachers, researchers, performers and those who bring works to audiences carry that celebration into their continuing work.

As a publisher, we contribute through books.

Our authors put that commitment into practice

Our connection to Cuba takes shape in the writers and works we publish. Our catalogue includes Gabriel, or the Muse’s Curse by Bayamo-born Balbina Sofía Otero León. Her career spans fiction and work in Cuban radio and television. Hers is one of the voices that connect our publishing community with Bayamo. Her author page.

Yudith Izaguirre Rodríguez, from Niquero, writes poetry and fiction and undertakes cultural research. Her works include The Women I Am and Isotopy of Decline, both in our catalogue. Juventina Soler Palomino, born in Manzanillo, writes for the stage with For Women Before They Yield to Temptation. Their different paths open up more ways of seeing Cuban experience. Yudith Izaguirre Rodríguez · Juventina Soler Palomino.

Other voices include Mildrey Alfonso Bacallao, born in Ciego de Ávila and author of Wrestling with Blood and Other Works; Joel Sequeda, born in Santa Clara, with Triangles; and Alexander Besú, with the poetry collections A Long Song for Yordanka and The Archon of All Misery. Our author directory.

That commitment also goes back to our beginnings: Luisa Dalia González, Yunior Sánchez Guerra, Vanessa Olivera Montero, Lisbet González and Ana Carenia Botello were first published by Tu Letra Online. Supporting their first publications is part of our history. Opening that first door means making room for a voice and working with its author to begin reaching readers.

These writers give us a way to speak about a commitment that takes shape in books. Each brings a distinctive voice and deserves to be read for what makes their writing their own. Together, they also reveal the breadth of our culture.

Publishing is a cultural act

Our work earns its place through what it makes possible. We help prepare works for publication, publish them and bring them into circulation and conversation with readers. Supporting a manuscript calls for attention to the writing, respect for the author whose name it bears and care in how the book is presented.

Online publishing offers another way for writers and readers to meet. It lets us look beyond physical premises when we think about how authors, publishers and readers relate to one another. We want to use those possibilities to support works and the people who write them, with the professional guidance set out in our publishing mission. About us.

We see this work as a legitimate contribution to Cuba’s national culture. Publishing initiatives, workshops, libraries, readers and creators all contribute in ways shaped by their circumstances. Wherever a voice finds a hearing, our cultural life gains new possibilities.

Belonging is something we do

Those of us who live abroad remain connected to Cuba in different ways. Distance can change how we see things and raise new questions. It can also make us more conscious of the need to read our writers, share their books and pass on words and memories we recognise as our own to other generations.

That connection is the source of our sense of Cuban identity, which we express through what we do. Reading, writing, editing and talking are ways to take part. Cuban culture brings together experiences from both on and off the island: the differences between them, the points where they meet and the creativity they continue to generate.

This 20 October, Tu Letra Online renews its commitment to keeping that culture alive: supporting our authors and bringing their works to new readers.

We write Cuba from afar, too. And every book we help find its readers is another way to take part in Cuban life.

Let’s keep talking

• Which Cuban book or author has helped keep your connection to Cuba alive?
• What opportunities to publish and be read do our writers need today?
• How do you pass on Cuban culture to those who’ve grown up outside the island?

Share your experiences, suggest something to read and join the conversation with respect for the different ways we each experience being Cuban.