Cuba's Lack of Literature

Visiting second-hand bookstores during the nineties was my hobby, in my hometown in that peculiar Caribbean island. There wasn't much to read, except a lot of old science books translated from Russian. And mixed with those, some western textbooks printed at the same press than the Russian ones (I have always wondered if those were reproduced with permission). For lack of juvenile literature, I developed a hobby of deciphering foreign textbooks during my teenager days...

But those were the nineties, and now is now. These day, bookstores only sell "souvenir literature", dreadful works about and by the dictatorship ideologues that ordinary Cubans regard with indifference at best ...

My last Feria del Libro was over 12 years ago and it was great! I got American Psycho, a Nightcrawler comic book, and thriller novel (now or never by elizabeth adler). Perhaps this was due to my ignorance as a young Cuban and not being able to learn about what was going on in the literary world outside the country. The Cuban Government censors many things, in my opinion, I wanted to know what specific works the author thinks should be available.

Can't pirate literature travel by thumbdrive? Maybe there's no desire for contemporary literary fiction and its endless turmoil about coming to terms with guilt, in a country where most people don't feel guilty.

Gabriel Garcia Marquez was a good friend of Fidel, his books must be available in bookshops.