Artistic dissidence in Cuba through the book Los Acuartelados de San Isidro

Using the 2021 book, Los Acuartelados de San Isidro as a starting point, this talk takes a historical journey through the struggle for the rights of freedom of expression in Cuba from 1959 to 11 July 2021, the date of the largest demonstrations against the Cuban government in 60 years, with the novelty of having been organized through social media. Since 2018, “Los Acuartelados” through their live streams, songs and performances, became opinion leaders against the Cuban government, spearheading “Movimiento de San Isidro”, a group of artists named for the neighbourhood in Havana where they met, protested and barricaded themselves in a house until the political police arrested one of its members. It was a feat to achieve such international media impact, since the internet in Cuba was not widely accessible until December 2018.

It is the first time that a broad historical review of artistic dissidence in Cuba, involving the most important writers such as Guillermo Cabrera Infante, or performance artists such as Tania Bruguera, has been collected into a book. It is no coincidence the book is now part of the catalogues of the Universities of Harvard, Princeton and Salamanca.

Arsenio Rodríguez Quintana (Havana, 1964) is a Cuban-Spanish historian, poet, narrator, essayist. He has self-published more than twenty books and developed his own publishing project, Ediciones Muntaner. Before immigrating to Spain, he worked in the publishing houses of the Cuban National Archive. His most recent works include two books of essays: La Música Cubana en el Cine Americano y Europeo (2022) and Euronegr@s Un acercamiento a la imagen del negro en Europa (2023), as well as the 2021 trilogy: Los Acuartelados de San Isidro, Adiós al Miedo en Cuba: ¡Hola Libertad! and 11J Cuba: Crónicas de un estallido social tras 62 años de dictadura, among others.

Book: https://www.amazon.de/gp/aw/d/B08SB2GJL6/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0