{"id":4848,"date":"2026-03-02T15:17:09","date_gmt":"2026-03-02T19:17:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.radioenciclopedia.cu\/cultural-news\/?p=4848"},"modified":"2026-03-02T15:17:09","modified_gmt":"2026-03-02T19:17:09","slug":"el-caiman-barbudo-sixty-years-biting-into-the-apple-of-thought","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.radioenciclopedia.cu\/cultural-news\/el-caiman-barbudo-sixty-years-biting-into-the-apple-of-thought-02032026\/","title":{"rendered":"El Caim\u00e1n Barbudo: Sixty Years Biting into the Apple of Thought"},"content":{"rendered":"

When Jes\u00fas D\u00edaz and a group of young writers and journalists launched the first issue of El Caim\u00e1n Barbudo<\/strong><\/em> in 1966, they could hardly have imagined they were founding a dynasty. That cultural supplement of the newspaper Juventud Rebelde<\/em>, 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. \u201cEl Caim\u00e1n was born as a necessity in the Cuban intellectual landscape,\u201d reads its own historical record, and that necessity was none other than to revolutionize through ideas.<\/p>\n

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<\/em>, the magazine faces the constant challenge of reinventing itself without losing its identity. That identity, forged across several generations, bears a distinctive hallmark: controversy.<\/p>\n

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<\/strong><\/em> 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 \u201cat forced marches.\u201d Padura evokes that era as one of \u201cliterary journalism\u201d that sought to break with formal molds and connect with reality in a deeper way. Although his time at El Caim\u00e1n<\/strong><\/em> 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.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Yet the history of the \u201csaurian\u201d\u2014as its founders and readers affectionately call it\u2014cannot be understood without its directors. Fidel D\u00edaz Castro, known in literary circles as \u201cEl Diablo\u201d D\u00edaz, 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, D\u00edaz recalls his initial panic at confronting a publication whose \u201cintellectual and polemical level far exceeded my own.\u201d Rather than imposing abrupt changes, his strategy was immersion: he delved into La gaveta<\/em>, the bohemian space where the magazine was crafted\u2014a mini\u2011apartment where Bladimir Zamora, Manuel Henr\u00edquez Lagarde, and others dreamed up issues amid endless debates and aguardiente.<\/p>\n

That creative bohemia produced foundational moments that are now legendary. In its first issue, the magazine published a manifesto titled \u201cWe Declare,\u201d defending colloquial poetry and the writer\u2019s commitment to his or her time. \u201cTrue art has never been and can never be counterrevolutionary,\u201d 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 \u201cTeresita and Us\u201d was held at the National Museum of Fine Arts of Cuba. There, a skinny 21\u2011year\u2011old with a receding hairline and a guitar appeared in public for the first time. His name: Silvio Rodr\u00edguez.<\/p>\n

That connection with trova<\/em> and Latin American song has been a constant. From its earliest days, the magazine welcomed singer\u2011songwriters and maintained rock sections at a time when many people\u2014especially officials in cultural institutions\u2014viewed that trend as an enemy. Publishing about rock in those years was a window in the wall of intolerance.<\/p>\n

Today, the publication preserves that spirit but navigates the turbulent waters of the digital age. Racso Morej\u00f3n, one of its editors, explained in an interview with La Jiribilla<\/em> that the current team is a crucible of several generations with distinct ways and styles of understanding life and culture. \u201cStylistically and editorially, we persist in not being apologetic; we continue to believe that while every word belongs in poetry (\u2026), every word also belongs in what we publish in the magazine, especially if it is written by young artists and creators (\u2026),\u201d Morej\u00f3n stated, defending the need for cultural journalism that reflects tensions within Cuba\u2019s socio\u2011cultural field. For him, Web 2.0 is the greatest challenge, and El Caim\u00e1n<\/strong><\/em> has spent more than a decade immersed in that transformation toward a multimedia product without renouncing the irreverence that characterizes its readership.<\/p>\n

The celebration of the sixtieth anniversary comes with a campaign that, according to the magazine\u2019s official Facebook page, looks to the future without forgetting its original bite. In a media landscape dominated by immediacy and new languages, El Caim\u00e1n Barbudo<\/strong><\/em> 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 \u201cintoning the new song, joyful and sad, hopeful and certain of the builders.\u201d Sixty years later, the caiman is still alive\u2014and still biting.<\/p>\n

Photos: El Caim\u00e1n Barbudo on Facebook<\/p>\n

Translated by Luis E. Amador Dominguez<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In a media landscape dominated by immediacy and new languages, El Caim\u00e1n Barbudo remains committed to the mission it embraced from its genesis: to demonstrate that art and critical thought are not divorced from life.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4849,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[1100],"ppma_author":[14],"class_list":["post-4848","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-new-cuba","tag-el-caiman-barbudo"],"authors":[{"term_id":14,"user_id":0,"is_guest":1,"slug":"lazaro-hernandez-rey","display_name":"L\u00e1zaro Hern\u00e1ndez Rey","avatar_url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&r=g","0":null,"1":"","2":"","3":"","4":"","5":"","6":"","7":"","8":""}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.radioenciclopedia.cu\/cultural-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4848","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.radioenciclopedia.cu\/cultural-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.radioenciclopedia.cu\/cultural-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.radioenciclopedia.cu\/cultural-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.radioenciclopedia.cu\/cultural-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4848"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.radioenciclopedia.cu\/cultural-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4848\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4851,"href":"https:\/\/www.radioenciclopedia.cu\/cultural-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4848\/revisions\/4851"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.radioenciclopedia.cu\/cultural-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4849"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.radioenciclopedia.cu\/cultural-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4848"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.radioenciclopedia.cu\/cultural-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4848"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.radioenciclopedia.cu\/cultural-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4848"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.radioenciclopedia.cu\/cultural-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/ppma_author?post=4848"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}