CURATED BY KRISTIN KOWNACKY
Named one of the world’s most influential people, blogger and journalist Yoani Sanchez journeys through her world tour criticizing her home country of Cuba. What started out as a blog in 2004 (and later a magazine), turned into an international sensation after Sanchez openly criticized Cuba’s communist government and Fidel Castro’s regime. Despite the danger such a tour embodies, she fights on for a free Cuba.
FROM MARIE CLAIRE
Yoani Sánchez hurries through the United Nations headquarters, her long hair swinging around her waist. Wearing dangly earrings and no makeup, she has the look of a 1960s flower child. But she’s far from mellow. One of the world’s most influential bloggers, she’s in New York City as part of a risky 12-nation tour, openly criticizing the communist regime in Cuba, where she lives. In her country, that kind of talk can get a person jailed.
A day ago she was on Capitol Hill. Tonight she heads to Amsterdam. Now she makes her way across the labyrinthine U.N. compound for a speech. “I want to talk about the real Cuba,” she says in Spanish through a translator. “Not what you read in magazines, where it’s an island where everybody drinks rum or everyone is in military fatigues.”…Continue Reading
ABOUT THE CURATOR
Kristin Kownacky is a junior at Flagler College in St. Augustine, Florida, where she is currently working towards a BA in journalism and international studies. It is her dream to travel the world, discovering hidden treasures and writing about each experience. Read her articles on her personal blog, Depart We Now.
Photo via lapatilla