In the Roussillon plain, 50 kilometers north of the Franco-Spanish border, the Rivesaltes camp stands on dry and windy land. Converted into a Memorial in 2015 and recently renovated, the barracks of the former internment camp that operated here between 1941 and 1964 are still visible. Spanish refugees who fled Franco’s troops in 1939 were the first to be confined in Rivesaltes, a supposed “reception center” that was very similar to a concentration camp, surrounded by barbed wire and guarded by the French army. Conditions were precarious, but in the improvised camps on the beaches of Argelès, it was even worse. Although the policy of interning “undesirable foreigners” began in the 1930s, it was the authoritarian and pro-Nazi Vichy regime that truly boosted it from 1940 onwards.

Leonardo Padura (Havana, 1955) is very cautious. The writer refuses to venture predictions for Cuba or to answer whether he sees any middle ground between the current regime and a U.S. intervention that would lead to a status of protectorate or colony for the island. “I have no idea what might happen,” says the winner of the Prince of Asturias Award for Literature in 2015, visiting Paris to promote the French version of Going to Havana and for a colloquium at the Cervantes Institute. The author, tired of the media’s insistence for him to take a stand, acknowledges that the Spanish transition could be an inspiring source, like many others, “but it depends on other decisions that are beyond my reach, not even able to outline them.” “Speculating about any future is very risky; speculating about Cuba’s future is madness,” he apologizes.

The United States Navy deployed in the Gulf of Oman reportedly opened fire on an Iranian-flagged cargo ship that was trying to overcome the blockade established by Washington and took control of it, according to Donald Trump announced on his Truth Social account this Sunday.