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"A radical political change that removes its current leaders and retires an unfeasible socialist society". Such is, neither more nor less, the urgency of Cuba, according to the vision of the Cuban writer, editor, and humorist Jorge Fernández Era.
In an interview granted to Diario de Cuba in Madrid, Spain, where he arrived on March 30 along with his wife, writer Laideliz Herrera Laza, Fernández Era stated that the damage inflicted on the people of Isla and its diaspora, after almost seven decades of fear, intolerance, and absolute control, is something from which it will take decades to recover; but at least for him, he will not stop fighting for it.
With his corrosive humor, which could not be curtailed even under extreme pressure for him and his family, the writer stated that he felt "nostalgia for the patrol car on the corner of my block, for the feeling of triumph it represented to step out of the house and have the patrol car's door opened for me, to be handcuffed, and to be given the chance—without fearing repercussions—to shout 'sons of bitches!'."
He, also a journalist, suffered for years from harassment, detentions, and reprisals by the Cuban government and its political police, State Security, before being able to leave the country. He faced bogus judicial charges that the Prosecutor's Office did not annul until November 2025, a legal threat that hung over him for months and was part of a systematic strategy of harassment by the authorities.
His history of repression includes episodes of extreme violence. In July 2025, he reported being beaten by a State Security officer following an arbitrary detention. Months later, in January 2026, he was detained for 15 hours for attempting to peacefully protest in the streets of Havana.
The authorities of the regime also kept him locked up again in the Zanja Unit during one of those protests last March, in what human rights organizations have classified as a pattern of systematic repression against dissenting voices.
In this new stage in Spain, which Fernández Era still does not dare to classify as a definitive exile, the journalist and his wife will present the books they were prevented from attending the launch of in 2023: Café a media mañana, by her, and Cruentos de humor, by him, both published by the Guantanamera label of the Spanish Editorial Samarcanda.
In his typical ironic tone, the humorist assured that the details of the book presentation will be revealed in due time by the cultural page of the newspaper Granma and the website Cubadebate, official voices of power in Cuba.
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