Half-testimony, half-fiction, Cien botellas presents an exceptional portrait of a group of dissidents, particularly intellectuals and homosexuals, in ruinous Havana during the Special Period. Writing in the first person and with a style full of humour, Portela gives a voice to Zeta, a young, amateur writer who has abandoned herself to the most primal and violent impulses. Her lack of commitment, in the end, becomes an efficient mechanism for Zeta and her friends to resist the State’s repressive measures at the time. Thus, Portela tells us that the Cuban government had no choice but to accept those citizens whose way of life did not conform to the ideology of the system.
We have seen that Zeta and her friends represent a threat to the revolution because they lack moral limits and accept as normal unexpected outcomes, for example the accidental and/or provoked deaths of Moisés, a prototype of a Cuban macho, and Sebastián, a prototype of a homosexual dissident. In Cien botellas, Havana’s guaridas (dens) are presented as micro-spaces, refuges for dissidents and small islands within the island. These refuges confer the privacy and protection needed to liberate Zeta and her friends from moral prejudices and the vigilance led by the CDRs and other mechanisms that aimed to regulate and control their conduct. Ultimately, the guaridas problematise the (hetero)sexist norms that persisted in Cuban society in favour of a fluid social structure.
Portela’s account of events is convincing because she addresses the facts without moral filters, unconcerned as she apparently is about the State repression and the consequences it could bring her. Furthermore, hers is a passive resistance that is endorsed by her lack of interest in the political events of the moment and in the conceptual approach that concerns the Cuban national identity, the recovery of the country’s historical memory, the future of the island and so on.
Finally, Cien botellas makes a significant and effective contribution to giving visibility to Cuban dissidents, particularly powerless women, lesbians, intellectuals and others who were accused of being a destabilising force against the Cuban system.