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Before Night Falls: A Memoir
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 supression as a writer, imprisonment as a ...more
Paperback, 317 pages
Published
October 1st 1994
by Penguin Books
(first published 1992)
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Fabian
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Perhaps the single best memoir I have read-- this work of art is excruciating. There is no doubt that everything that occurred to Arenas happened and that here is testament of how the new wave of Cuban writers, lingering between Batista (incited by him and his regime) and entering into the holocaust that is Communist Cuba by Castro, struggled and died. This voice was not extinguished, however.
Arena's life is full of missteps, amazing accomplishments and plenty of sex. He is proud of ...more
Arena's life is full of missteps, amazing accomplishments and plenty of sex. He is proud of ...more
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Jason
rated it
Recommends it for:
Cubans,Gays,Poets,Reinaldo Arenas'mother,those with a bawdy sense of humor/communism
Recommended to Jason by:
netflix
"...he lived a life whose beginning and end were indeed the same: from the start, one long, sustained sexual act..." says Guillermo Cabrera about Arenas' life. And man oh man, he wasn't kidding. There is so much sex in this book! It makes me think that everyone in Cuba is a sexhound waiting to pounce on each other, only restrained by social mores and/or the repressive government and its forced status quo. there is so much sex, it's funny. In his childhood he's having sex with all ...more
Before Night Falls is simultaneously heartbreaking and celebratory, and Reinaldo Arenas is brilliant and furious and quite clearly burning the candle at both ends. His prose reads like poetry half the time, and you find yourself completely sucked into his story--his peasant youth, his sexual awakening, his imprisonment, writing, exile, sickness, suicide.... Arenas writes as though he's on his deathbed (which he was) and as though he wants to remind the world of every bit of torture and sufferi...more
Excerpt: "The events at the peruvian embassy were the first mass rebellion by the Cuban people against the Castro dictatorship...Fidel and Raul Castro had personally taken a look at the Peruvian embassy. There, for the first time, Castro heard the people insulting him, calling him a coward, a criminal, and demanding freedom. It was then that Fidel ordered that they be gunned down, and those people--who had gone for fifteen days with almost no food, sleeping on their feet because there was n...more
Well I had to fight through that one at times.
I understand and feel for the author with the Cuban repression of his art, and the squalor that he had to live in. I think he was a wonderful writer, and his novels are probably brilliant. His views of the American far Left made me smile, as how can anyone have a better view of Cuba and the hatred and unjustified oppression that communism in that country produces.
But...
I can not believe for one second many of the t...more
I understand and feel for the author with the Cuban repression of his art, and the squalor that he had to live in. I think he was a wonderful writer, and his novels are probably brilliant. His views of the American far Left made me smile, as how can anyone have a better view of Cuba and the hatred and unjustified oppression that communism in that country produces.
But...
I can not believe for one second many of the t...more
I had no prior knowledge of Cuba when I started this book. Having finished it, I'm not really sure what the quality of my education on the subject has been.
Arenas paints a rather bleak picture of his native land. He describes life under Batista as unbearable and then under Castro as even more horrific. He talks of prisons, concentration camps, and slave labor. If what he says is true, he thoroughly exposes the inhumanity of the Cuban government.
I was surprised that nothin...more
Arenas paints a rather bleak picture of his native land. He describes life under Batista as unbearable and then under Castro as even more horrific. He talks of prisons, concentration camps, and slave labor. If what he says is true, he thoroughly exposes the inhumanity of the Cuban government.
I was surprised that nothin...more
This book was definitely a downer, but one I enjoyed reading and could not put down. Arenas had such a dramatic, chaotic, sometimes fantastic, life that it was a pleasure to have a peek into his world. This book really makes me question what I know about anything. I have always been attracted to literature about Che and communism, but this was a view at those same things from an entirely different presepective. This book reminded me that there are always so many things going on in life, that I a...more
I had to read this book for my postgrad postcolonial lit course. It was the only book on the course that dealt with homosexuality in postcolonial literature (that I've come across, anyway). Like a lot of the books on my course, I pick them up not knowing what to expect before my mind is blown away by what's inside. None more true for this book... there are some shocking and graphic depictions of sex and sexuality, and sometimes (to be perfectly honest - the farm animals) kinda disgusting. But I ...more
The truth that stems from this book is beautiful. Quite possibly my favorite writer at the moment. Each description is original in thought and placed on paper with no insecurities resting behind his hand. Beautiful, original, honest...a human being that was able to turn his own tragedy and life's struggle into a poetic memoir that should greet the eyes of anyone that considers themselves a true fan of great literature. This book will scare the shit out of you and make you think about Cuba an...more
In questo libro, un'autobiografia, c'è tutto un mondo che viene fuori e che chiarisce tante cose sulle dittature.
Non importa se il paese si chiama Cuba e il dittatore Fidel Castro.
Anzi fare questi nomi porta a critiche immediate, a sollevare dubbi sulla realtà delle cose.
Quello che conta è la descrizione dei metodi e delle violenze che il sistema utilizza per tenere il popolo al proprio posto.
Se si parla del paese succede quello che dice Saviano e cioè che chi lancia allarmi ...more
Non importa se il paese si chiama Cuba e il dittatore Fidel Castro.
Anzi fare questi nomi porta a critiche immediate, a sollevare dubbi sulla realtà delle cose.
Quello che conta è la descrizione dei metodi e delle violenze che il sistema utilizza per tenere il popolo al proprio posto.
Se si parla del paese succede quello che dice Saviano e cioè che chi lancia allarmi ...more
More than two decades ago I read a devastating memoir, 'Against all Hope' by Armando Valladares, that depicted the brutality of Castro's Cuba from the view of a prison cell. Now I have encountered a comparable memoir in 'Before Night Falls'. His memoir, just as shocking as that by Valladares, is above all a book about being free -- as an artist, a citizen, and a human. Recounting his journey from a poverty-stricken childhood in rural Cuba (undoubtedly a more severe life than poverty in Ameri...more
Sometimes a life is so harrowing, so dramatic from moment to moment, that you can scarcely believe someone managed to live through it. Reinaldo Arenas has certainly lived that kind of life: as a homosexual and dissident living under Batista and then Castro, he was uninterested in playing ball with either regime, and suffered torture and indignity beyond human reason in the name of his art, his country, and his cock.
If frank depictions of homosexual activity disturb you, don't bother with this b...more
If frank depictions of homosexual activity disturb you, don't bother with this b...more
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I decided to read this memoir after first viewing the foreign film of the same title....an order I seldom follow. Having been born in the 50's, many of my first political awakenings were connected in one way or another to what were considered Castro's threatening activities in Cuba. I never felt that I had an objective view of Cuban culture and history, Castro's rise to power, or the political views of the Cuban people themselves. While Arenas, a writer of both poetry and prose, in this book ...more
"Insane people are angels who, unable to bear the realities around them, must somehow take refuge in another world." - Reinaldo Arenas
At the beginning of his autobiography about life under the Cuban dictatorship of Castro, Arenas states that, "if you cannot live the way you want, there is no point in living." This book however is a testament to the struggle to live, regardless of the costs (even and inevitably death), it is a scream before the fading light, an ho...more
At the beginning of his autobiography about life under the Cuban dictatorship of Castro, Arenas states that, "if you cannot live the way you want, there is no point in living." This book however is a testament to the struggle to live, regardless of the costs (even and inevitably death), it is a scream before the fading light, an ho...more
Reinaldo Arenas, Before Night Falls (Penguin, 1993)
Arenas' memoir of life in Cuba has recently been made into one of the finest films extant by Julian Schnabel. Schnabel did an excellent job with the book; while his interpretation of the text was loose in places, he managed to capture in images the style of Arenas' writing.
In other words, if you saw the movie before reading the book, you're going to be somewhat surprised. Some of Schnabel's more memorable scenes are mentioned...more
Arenas' memoir of life in Cuba has recently been made into one of the finest films extant by Julian Schnabel. Schnabel did an excellent job with the book; while his interpretation of the text was loose in places, he managed to capture in images the style of Arenas' writing.
In other words, if you saw the movie before reading the book, you're going to be somewhat surprised. Some of Schnabel's more memorable scenes are mentioned...more
Exceptional piece of literature weaved into a memoir of great soul, and out spoken voice of defiance against oppression. He spoke for all voices being silenced by Castro. Before Night Falls and other Cuban writers that were exiled from their country are the voices which we must listen to from the heart.
The conditions of the island gave him the drive to voice himself in his literature about what he was experiencing. The State Police (Government) was the hand that kept trying to silen...more
The conditions of the island gave him the drive to voice himself in his literature about what he was experiencing. The State Police (Government) was the hand that kept trying to silen...more
Before Night Falls is provocative, engaging, and eloquently written. The beginning is a harsh introducion with Arenas near his death bed, then starts from his earliest childhood memories in Cuba and moves forward forty years to his life in New York. Style-wise, I love the way this book is composed in fragments. Some of them resemble traditional chapters, but other take on a single subject, such as "the earth" or "witches," and briefly examine his relationship to that subject....more
I could never write anything that would do this book justice. It is an amazing and heartbreaking memoir that will live with me forever. Books like this one become my classics. It is a story I will return to time and time again. It will become a good old friend of mine very soon. Arenas's life story in unbelievable on it's own, but his writing is delicious. This review is more about me and my relationship to the book, but that was its greatest impact on me. It became so personal. Please give it a...more
Es inevitable verse especialmente afectado por este relato. Para quienes vivimos en Latinoamérica y sufrimos de los delirios izquierdistas de algunos personajes que no vale la pena mencionar, esta novela revela las realides y miedos mas terribles que muchos se niegan a admitir.
Antes que anochezca, constituye un testimonio autobiográfico desgarrador de la vida del autor, quien expone con crudeza sus sufrimientos y las dolorosas vivencias que marcan su vida dentro y fuera de Cuba.
...more
Antes que anochezca, constituye un testimonio autobiográfico desgarrador de la vida del autor, quien expone con crudeza sus sufrimientos y las dolorosas vivencias que marcan su vida dentro y fuera de Cuba.
...more
This book was amazing. It was about a man who grew up in a very rural village in Cuba to become a revolutionary against Castro. He used his charm and writing to affect millions. He spent a lot of time prison, but that didn't even stop him from smuggling out his writing. In the end, it was his AIDS that got him, not the Communists. This book is his final account to tell the truth about his life.
I have to admit that I came to this book because of seeing Julian Schnabel's movie adaptation a number of years ago. I thought the movie was beautiful and I had never heard of Reinaldo Arenas before. His memoir is a revealing look at the life of writers and gay people under the Castro regime, and an eloquent testament to being a writer and to being free. It is also full of his "erotic adventures" as he called them. Because both his insistence on sexual freedom and the writings he smugg...more
Reynaldo Arenas is an amazing writer and if you can get past his anger, you can appreciate that he may well have been one of the greats. I did find his assessment of Gabriel Garcia Marquez humorous and love GGM in spite of it anyway - you'll have to read what he has to say because I ain't telling.
Unfortunately, he lived in a time and place which really damped his attempt to reach out to the universe. That said, Reynaldo Arenas has something to say and the world nevertheless has a c...more
Unfortunately, he lived in a time and place which really damped his attempt to reach out to the universe. That said, Reynaldo Arenas has something to say and the world nevertheless has a c...more
An intense experience... extrodinary tales of erotic adventures and horrific experiences. Although it left me with no doubt as to the brutality of the Castro regime, I became aware that this is the story of one man, who considered himself part of an intellectual class set aside from the rest of the Cuban population.
I guess the most interseting aspect of reading this story is the responses of people when you talked to them about it... with some scepticism arising surrounding whether a...more
I guess the most interseting aspect of reading this story is the responses of people when you talked to them about it... with some scepticism arising surrounding whether a...more
I found that I wasn't drawn to the main character. Perhaps that's why I didn't give this book a higher rating.
The most interesting aspect was the political side of the story: how Castro came into power, how he slowly strangled the people and took everything from them until they were too powerless to change things, how writing and art were supressed, how the people were marginalized.
The most interesting aspect was the political side of the story: how Castro came into power, how he slowly strangled the people and took everything from them until they were too powerless to change things, how writing and art were supressed, how the people were marginalized.
An inspiring (debatable) true tale of Cuban author and refugee Renaldo Arenas imerses the reader in Havana. I can't even begin to explain the greatness of this book. I was introduced to Cuban American literature in college, and I've been hooked every since. Arenas is amazing. I've read this book too many times to count.
so absolutely brilliant and heartbreaking simultaneously! The movie could not capture much of what (IMHO) makes the book sing...while visually it matched the stunning qualities, there is more between the covers of this book that I think any reader will be able to take away and have it move them for the rest of their life...
I read this because I strongly disliked the movie and had thought that the source material had to have been better. Unfortunately, I didn't like this either.
I found Reinaldo's story flat and unfocused, and I didn't connect with him as a person until it was too late, when he was finally in the United States.
I found Reinaldo's story flat and unfocused, and I didn't connect with him as a person until it was too late, when he was finally in the United States.
I'm loving this book so far. The imagery, details and commentary are simple and straight forward, but beautiful and precise in a way that I keep getting lost in it.
I like how it's divided into tiny little sections so I don't have to commit to much when I start reading. The brevity makes the getting lost in it all the more impressive!
He's also managed to make me blush a few times - something I forgot books could make me do!
I like how it's divided into tiny little sections so I don't have to commit to much when I start reading. The brevity makes the getting lost in it all the more impressive!
He's also managed to make me blush a few times - something I forgot books could make me do!
The writing is faily mediocre, but the tale itself is enlightening and heartbreaking. The story Arenas tells is a story of a socialist/communist nation unfolding, a very different world from the "socialist" nation the US has become according to critics of President Obama.
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Arenas was born in the countryside, in the northern part of the Province of Oriente, Cuba, and later moved to the city of Holguín. In 1963, he moved to Havana to enroll in the School of Planification and, later, in the Faculty of Letters at the Universidad de La Habana, where he studied philosophy and literature without completing a degree. The following year, he began working at the Biblioteca Na...more
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“Before getting to my mother's house, I would always think of her on the porch or even on the street, sweeping. She had a light way of sweeping, as if removing the dirt were not as important as moving the broom over the ground. Her way of sweeping was symbolic; so airy, so fragile, with a broom she tried to sweep away all the horrors, all the loneliness, all the misery that had accompanied her all her life...”
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