Unusual stories of transformed bodies in Cuban science fiction

Paper for the 2025 Annual Conference of Science Fiction Research Association
Rochester, NY, July 30, 2025

Abstract:

The initial focus of this project was the age of the writers. The fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 meant an economic and ideological upheaval in Cuba, and its traces are evident in the thematic, stylistic, and even ontological differences in the writing of the new generation of intellectuals. I set out to find stories written by people who had no memory of the world before the demise of the Soviet Union.

The second focus was the subject. The body is not a frequent theme in Cuban science fiction. For those who create the genre on our postcolonial Caribbean island, other themes, like climate change or the concept of nationhood, are more prevalent. Cuban science fiction stories that center on bodies and their technologies are scarce and have received little specific critical attention.

Today I will discuss four stories written by people who don’t remember much about the world before the fall of the Berlin Wall where the body is an ethical and technological focus: «Chunga Maya» by Alejandro Martín Rojas (1984), «Dulce» by Iris Rosales Valdés (1984), «Mulas» (Mules) by Dennis Mourdoch Morán (1985), and «Ojos de cocodrilo» (Cocodrile Eyes) by Malena Salazar Maciá (1988).