El Caimán Barbudo: Sixty Years Biting into the Apple of Thought
When Jesús Díaz and a group of young writers and journalists launched the first issue of El Caimán Barbudo in 1966, they could hardly have imagined they were founding a dynasty. That cultural supplement of the newspaper Juventud Rebelde, published in tabloid format with a print run of nearly 80,000 copies, set out to fill a void left by earlier publications and, above all, to exercise critical thinking from the left. “El Caimán was born as a necessity in the Cuban intellectual landscape,” reads its own historical record, and that necessity was none other than to revolutionize through ideas.
Today, the publication, which belongs to Casa Editorial Abril, celebrates six decades of existence. It is no minor anniversary for a magazine that has survived shifting eras, paper shortages, and technological transformations. As its current director, Yasel Toledo Garnache, noted in an interview with the program Canal Caribe, the magazine faces the constant challenge of reinventing itself without losing its identity. That identity, forged across several generations, bears a distinctive hallmark: controversy.
Writer Leonardo Padura, who served on the editorial board between 1980 and 1983, recalls those years as a decisive formative period. In testimony to the BBC, the author of The Man Who Loved Dogs admits that he arrived at the magazine as a philologist who wrote book reviews, and that it was there he began to become a journalist “at forced marches.” Padura evokes that era as one of “literary journalism” that sought to break with formal molds and connect with reality in a deeper way. Although his time at El Caimán was brief, cut short by an internal crisis that dismantled the team in 1983, he acknowledges that the experience marked a milestone in Cuban journalism.
Yet the history of the “saurian”—as its founders and readers affectionately call it—cannot be understood without its directors. Fidel Díaz Castro, known in literary circles as “El Diablo” Díaz, assumed leadership in 2000 and faced the titanic task of producing issue No. 300. In an extensive interview published by the Union of Journalists of Cuba, Díaz recalls his initial panic at confronting a publication whose “intellectual and polemical level far exceeded my own.” Rather than imposing abrupt changes, his strategy was immersion: he delved into La gaveta, the bohemian space where the magazine was crafted—a mini‑apartment where Bladimir Zamora, Manuel Henríquez Lagarde, and others dreamed up issues amid endless debates and aguardiente.
That creative bohemia produced foundational moments that are now legendary. In its first issue, the magazine published a manifesto titled “We Declare,” defending colloquial poetry and the writer’s commitment to his or her time. “True art has never been and can never be counterrevolutionary,” read those inaugural pages, in a statement of principles the publication still upholds. Perhaps the most mythic episode occurred on July 1, 1968, when the recital “Teresita and Us” was held at the National Museum of Fine Arts of Cuba. There, a skinny 21‑year‑old with a receding hairline and a guitar appeared in public for the first time. His name: Silvio Rodríguez.
That connection with trova and Latin American song has been a constant. From its earliest days, the magazine welcomed singer‑songwriters and maintained rock sections at a time when many people—especially officials in cultural institutions—viewed that trend as an enemy. Publishing about rock in those years was a window in the wall of intolerance.
Today, the publication preserves that spirit but navigates the turbulent waters of the digital age. Racso Morejón, one of its editors, explained in an interview with La Jiribilla that the current team is a crucible of several generations with distinct ways and styles of understanding life and culture. “Stylistically and editorially, we persist in not being apologetic; we continue to believe that while every word belongs in poetry (…), every word also belongs in what we publish in the magazine, especially if it is written by young artists and creators (…),” Morejón stated, defending the need for cultural journalism that reflects tensions within Cuba’s socio‑cultural field. For him, Web 2.0 is the greatest challenge, and El Caimán has spent more than a decade immersed in that transformation toward a multimedia product without renouncing the irreverence that characterizes its readership.
The celebration of the sixtieth anniversary comes with a campaign that, according to the magazine’s official Facebook page, looks to the future without forgetting its original bite. In a media landscape dominated by immediacy and new languages, El Caimán Barbudo remains committed to the mission it embraced from its genesis: to demonstrate that art and critical thought are not divorced from life. As its founders wrote in 1966, the publication continues “intoning the new song, joyful and sad, hopeful and certain of the builders.” Sixty years later, the caiman is still alive—and still biting.
Photos: El Caimán Barbudo on Facebook
Translated by Luis E. Amador Dominguez
