| Description |
xvii, 317 pages ; 23 cm |
| Summary |
"Before Night Fall is Reinaldo Arenas's stunning autobiography - a bold and unrestrained account of his life as a writer and a homosexual. Arenas, acknowledged as one of the great twentieth-century Cuban writers, was born in 1943 into a poor, rural Cuban family. At the age of fifteen he joined Castro's guerrillas against Batista's right-wing regime, only to discover that repression under Castro would be on a monumental scale. Reinaldo Arenas spent twenty years of his life trying to survive his "re-education," to safeguard his manuscripts, and to maintain his sanity when he was imprisoned in El Morro prison in Havana. But despite everything that happened to him, including betrayal by his aunt and some of his closest "friends," Arenas triumphed, finally leaving Cuba during the Mariel exodus in 1980." "But America could never replace his beloved Cuba, and his anti-Castro stance made him unsympathetic to many American intellectuals. The final irony was his battle with AIDS, which dominated the last years of his life until he committed suicide on December 7, 1990, at the age of forty-seven." "Before Night Falls was begun before Arenas left Cuba and was completed in the last stage of the disease. It is an extraordinary document - a compelling and moving account of the hell that Arenas experienced in Cuba and the purgatory he endured in the United States. It is a book both raw and fierce, tender and lyrical, particularly about the Cuban landscape. In it you will discover a man of enormous vitality, resilience, and courage. Arenas writes of his own book, "I tell my truth like a Jew who has suffered from racism, a Russian who has been in the Gulag, or any human being who has eyes to see things as they are: I cry out: therefore I am.""--BOOK JACKET. |
| Form |
Also issued online. |
| Contents |
Introduction: the End -- The Stones -- The Grove -- The River -- School -- The Temple of the Spirits -- The Well -- Christmas Eve -- The Harvest -- The Downpour -- The Spectacle -- Eroticism -- Violence -- The Morning Fog -- The Night, My Grandmother -- The Earth -- The Sea -- Politics -- Holguin -- The Rub Pub -- Christmas -- Rebel -- The Revolution -- A Student -- Havana -- Fidel Castro -- Hymns -- The Fire -- Theatrics and the Chicken Farm -- Raul -- Good-Bye to the Chicken Farm -- The Library -- The Cuban Book Institute -- The Four Categories of Gays -- Virgilio Pinera -- Lezama Lima -- My Generation -- A Trip -- Eroticism -- Jorge and Margarita -- Santa Marica (Saint Queer) -- The Abreu Brothers -- Super-Stalinism -- The Sugar Mill -- Olga Andreu -- The Padilla "Case" -- A Trip to Holguin -- Nelson Rodriguez -- The Wedding -- The Arrest -- The Flight -- The Capture -- Prison -- Villa Marista -- Again at el Morro -- An "Open" Jail -- Out on the Street -- The Monserrate Hotel -- Good-Bye to Virgilio -- Mariel -- Key West -- Miami -- Exile -- Witches -- Mariel Magazine -- Travels -- Madness -- The Eviction -- The Announcement -- Dreams -- Farewell. |
| Subject |
Arenas, Reinaldo, 1943-1990.
|
|
Authors, Cuban -- 20th century -- Biography.
|
| Indexed Term |
Spanish fiction |
|
Cuba |
| Added Title |
Antes que anochezca. English
|
| Other Form: |
Online version: Arenas, Reinaldo, 1943-1990. Antes que anochezca. English. Before night falls. New York, N.Y., U.S.A. : Viking, 1993 (OCoLC)622348200 |
| ISBN |
0670840785 |
|
9780670840786 |
|
