Where the són always shines | Word of mouth
Donna Yawching on the Festival de la Trova in Santiago de Cuba
Christmas cake and mushroom clouds | Cookup Classic
Christmas is coming, the goose is getting fat. Chestnuts roasting on an open fire. Visions of sugar plums danced in their heads. Why is it...
Dancing with Cubans | Backstory
Cuba’s Ballet Santiago debuted a daring production that pushed its dancers and audiences beyond anything they’d done or seen before — with more to come, learns Donna Yawching
Living la vida Viñales | Explore
Donna Yawching tours this beautiful Cuban region, taking in its infectious music and meeting some of its ever-resilient people along the way
Són city, Cuba | Destination
Near the eastern end of Cuba, Santiago is a regional capital, a treasure house of history — and, Donna Yawching writes, the island’s most musical city. The soundtrack is driven by the rhythms of són, she learns — and the soul of Santiago is in its musicians’ fervour for their heritage
Santiago — carnival city | Explore
Santiago, Cuba’s second-largest city, has long been a hotbed of culture — and it comes to a blaze each July, as Santiago’s unique annual Carnival, centred on the feast of St James the Apostle, takes over. Donna Yawching explains the historical roots of Santiago Carnival, and why it’s a time of year when no one expects to get much sleep
Falling for Havana | Explore
Few cities in the world have such an aura of history and glamour as Havana. As Donna Yawching writes, the Cuban capital has its gritty side — right next to world-class architecture, amazing culture, and a spirit that has to be experienced to be understood
André Alexis: the puzzle of “home” | Closeup
Born in Trinidad, brought up in Canada, writer André Alexis is a “Nowherian” — and that complicated identity, along with his passion for exploring big ideas, drives his philosophical and deeply literary novels. A recent string of awards has raised his international profile, but as Donna Yawching learns, it was no overnight success for one of the most original writers in both Caribbean and Canadian literature
