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More copies of this ISBNThis title in other editionsBefore Night Falls: A Memoirby Reinaldo Arenas
Synopses & ReviewsPublisher Comments:The shocking memoir by visionary Cuban writer Reinaldo Arenas "is a book above all about being free," said The New York Review of Books — sexually, politically, artistically. Arenas recounts a stunning odyssey from his poverty-stricken childhood in rural Cuba and his adolescence as a rebel fighting for Castro, through his suppression as a writer, imprisonment as a homosexual, his flight from Cuba via the Mariel boat lift, and his subsequent life and the events leading to his death in New York. In what The Miami Herald calls his "deathbed ode to eroticism," Arenas breaks through the code of secrecy and silence that protects the privileged in a state where homosexuality is a political crime. Recorded in simple, straightforward prose, this is the true story of the Kafkaesque life and world re-created in the author's acclaimed novels.
Review:"[P]oignant and haunting...his standard of liberation was absolute, his innocence made him vulnerable to unending hurt, and the freedom he sought exists nowhere." New York Times Books of the Century
Review:"[This] is an extraordinary book, extraordinary in its restraint and its dignity, particularly in view of the tribulations that seemed always to dog [Arenas]....The language of the memoir is stark, the sentences short and staccato, with an urgency of forward movement. He is recalling his life, ticking it off in sharp, remembered moments, against the clock, with death waiting at his elbow....Before Night Falls might well have been a long cry of anger, a diatribe, but it is marked much more by its fierce determination to describe his experience honestly and incontrovertibly than by anger or self-pity.... There is a noble and imperturbable dignity about Before Night Falls; it is a book above all about being free." Alastair Reid, The New York Review of Books
Review:"Dolores Koch's translation is a great achievement. She is not only accurate and faithful to the original but she even captures Arenas' flashes of lyricism and melancholy....Reading Arenas is like witnessing a bare consciousness in the process of assimilating the most universal, but powerful, human experiences and turning them into literature. Because of this, [reading] Before Night Falls is crucial to understanding his works. But, more important, it is a record of human cruelty and the toils of one individual to survive them. Anyone who feels the temptation to be lenient in judging Castro's Government should first read this passionate and beautifully written book." Roberto Gonzalez Echevarria, The New York Times Book Review
Review:"[A] fascinating and frightening tale of growing up extremely poor in rural Cuba, of varied personal and political relationships, of rebelliousness, homosexuality, suppression, and persecution. In the picaresque tradition, the narrative is earthy and at times raw; the frequent sexual escapades are presumably true accounts. The description of life in Havana's El Morro prison makes the skin crawl. As an author who was not only anti-regime but also gay, Arenas was compelled to smuggle his work abroad for publication. More than a personal story, this memoir is an insightful analysis of the idiosyncrasies of an authoritarian regime." Charles E. Perry, Library Journal
Review:"In this powerful memoir of passions both personal and political, Cuban author Arenas (Hallucinations) describes his voyage from peasant poverty to his oppression as a dissident writer and homosexual." Publishers Weekly
Review:"[A]n extraordinarily powerful autobiography that's both a poignant personal memoir and a damning political indictment of the Castro regime and its supporters...a distinguished addition to the literature of dissent and exile." Kirkus Reviews
Synopsis:This shocking personal and political memoir from one of the most visionary writers to emerge from Castro's Cuba recounts Arenas' stunning odyssey — from his poverty-stricken childhood through his suppression as a writer and imprisonment as a homosexual to his flight to America and subsequent life and death in New York. A New York Times Best Book of 1993.
About the AuthorReinaldo Arenas was born in Cuba in 1943. In 1980, he was one of 120,000 Cubans who arrived in the United States on the Mariel boatlift. Arenas settled in New York where he lived until his death from AIDS ten years later.
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