Before Night Falls: A Memoir

The Cuban-born novelist describes his poverty-stricken childhood in rural Cuba, his adolescence as a rebel fighting for Castro, his suppression as a writer, his imprisonment for his homosexuality, and his flight from Cuba

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. His voracious sexuality pervades the book (numerous encounters are described), and Arenas suggests that the gay worldis instinctually non-monogamous, though he was celibate in the "monstrosity" of prison. The young Arenas, in the early days of Fidel Castro's revolution, gained his literary education working at the National Library; he then joined a fervent literary cricle. The Castro regime, however, banned his first novel, The Ill-Fated Peregrinations of Fray Servando , and Arenas had to evade security police to smuggle manuscripts abroad for publication. Protesting Castro's support of the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia, Arenas suffered forced labor in the sugarcane fields, spent more than two years in prison after being prosecuted as a homosexual counterrevolutionary and managed to gain exile along with many other gays during the 1980 Mariel boatlift. Having appended a fierce denunciation to this book of those seeking dialogue with Castro, the 47-year-old Arenas, who was suffering from AIDS, committed suicide in New York City in 1990.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Cuban novelist Arenas (The Doorman, 1991, etc.), who, ill with AIDS, committed suicide in 1990 shortly after completing this book: an extraordinarily powerful autobiography that's both a poignant personal memoir and a damning political indictment of the Castro regime and its supporters. The only child of a mother whose lover deserted her, Arenas was raised in his peasant grandparents' home. Living in the countryside (whose superstitions and rituals the author vividly evokes here), the large family barely grew enough to feed themselves. As a teenager, Arenas worked in a factory, but, bored, he joined Castro's rebels, whose battles against Batista turned out to be more propaganda than reality--the real killing began, Arenas says, once Castro was in power. Selected for further education, he was sent for accountant's training in a remote camp where Marxist- Leninist texts and dogma were taught by Communists. By now, Arenas, disenchanted with Castro's totalitarian regime, had begun to write. His work soon attracted attention and he moved to Havana, where he wrote two novels that, though unpublished, won prestigious awards. Shortly afterward, the harassment began that would lead to the smuggling abroad of his writings, which were published overseas to critical acclaim; to brutal imprisonment and torture; and, finally, to exile with the Mariel boatlift. A homosexual--Arenas is very frank here about his experiences and feelings--and political dissident, the author had been doubly vulnerable in a state where homosexuals were routinely imprisoned. Exile proved little better: New York was ``soulless,'' and for ``Cubans who have suffered persecution for twenty years in that terrible world, there is really no solace anywhere.'' Unable to ``write and to struggle for the freedom of Cuba,'' Arenas said in a letter intended for posthumous publication, ``I am ending my life.'' A last testament that resonates with passion for the freedom of the human spirit and for the author's beloved Cuba: a distinguished addition to the literature of dissent and exile. -- Copyright ©1993, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

This celebrated Cuban writer ( The Doorman , LJ 5/15/91; Singing from the Well , LJ 7/87), a victim of AIDS, committed suicide in New York in 1990. His autobiographical memoir is 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 antiregime 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. Recommended for literature collections.
- Charles E. Perry, East Central Univ., Ada, Okla.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.