Billy Corben

Since then, an estimated 18% of Cubans, as many as 2 million residents, have left.

This represents the largest outflux in the 66-year span of the tumultuous revolution.

By comparison, because it's amazing.

John Lee is a very intuitive writer because I was thinking the same thing.

I'm like two million.

I'm like when the Mariel boat lift happened, that was about one hundred and twenty five thousand Cubans arrived in South Florida over the span of about six to eight months or so.

And that was considered a cataclysmic humanitarian and economic crisis.

It nearly bankrupted the four southernmost counties of Florida, Monroe, Dade, Broward and Palm Beach.

And now two million have effectively fled the island.

But that's how bad shit has gotten in Cuba.

John Lee's one of the most striking things about the story is your dispatch to Cuba and how you describe what's going on there.

Can you tell us about the plight of the Cuban people today?

Because it sounds horrific, if not worse than ever.

It was miserable.

I live in the tropics.

We live in the tropics here, you know, and I cannot fathom

The description of life in Cuba that you describe, no fuel, no fans, no air, no electricity, no food.

People can't sleep at night because it's too hot.

So you're saying the quality of life, the poverty, which has led to an increase in crime, which you also describe in your story.

I mean, it sounds like when I quoted Arenas earlier, Cuba really sounds now more than ever, perhaps like a hellscape.