Before Night Falls

Author: Reinaldo Arenas
ISBN: 9780140157659

"Before Night Falls" 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 20th-century Cuban writers, was born in 1943 into a poor, rural Cuban family. At the age of 15, 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 20 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 y

Publisher: Penguin Books
Publish Date: 1994

Subjects: Biography & Autobiography / Literary, Biography & Autobiography / Personal Memoirs, Literary Criticism / Caribbean & Latin American, Social Science / Gay Studies

This book is available in the following Community Centers: Cross-Cultural Center (Location: Biography (BIO))