Issue 10 of Your Impossible Voice is devoted to—enamored of and enthusiastic about—new writing from Cuba and the Cuban diaspora. One of our primary interests at YIV has been in publishing work in translation, especially Latin American work. With the so-called “normalization” of relations between Cuba and the United States announced over a year ago, it seemed like a good time to defamiliarize those relations for a North American (and global, we like to think) literary audience. To make our relations seem new and strange. To work in some small way to free those relations from the pronouncements of politicians and the news / entertainment industry. As we began exploring recent Cuban writing in translation, poring over anthologies and reaching out to translators, we were pleased to discover the depth and width of Cuban writing today. Within this collection, there are recurring concerns—emigrating or staying behind, making a living, prostitution and romance, sexual identity and sexual politics—but varied styles and approaches. You will find younger writers alongside more established writers, more traditional writers alongside writers playing with form. Rather than a statement or a definitive sampling, however, we view this issue as a beginning, an eclectic smorgasbord, and an invitation; rather than our final word on Cuban writing, we consider this the early stages of an ongoing relationship.
—Stephen Beachy
January 5, 2016
