From the Bookshelf of Around the World in 80 Books…

Before Night Falls

Reinaldo Arenas

Start date: June 6, 2018

Finish date: July 17, 2018

Discussion: CUBA: Before Night Falls

Why we're reading this: Our book choice for Cuba is Before Night Falls. Reinaldo Arenas describes his poverty-stricken childhood …more
[close] Our book choice for Cuba is Before Night Falls. Reinaldo Arenas describes his poverty-stricken childhood in rural Cuba, his adolescence as a rebel fighting for Fidel Castro, and his life in revolutionary Cuba as a homosexual. Very quickly the Castro government suppressed his writing and persecuted him for his homosexuality until he was finally imprisoned.

Discussion July 12-17.

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CUBA: Before Night Falls

As You Read - Thoughts on Before Night Falls?
By Cait · 11 posts · 9 views

last updated Jul 23, 2018 06:05AM

What Members Thought

Jul 22, 2018 Elizabeth added it

Shelves: around-the-world, memoirs, latin-america

I wasn’t really sure what to make of this book for a while. I found it beautifully evocative, but also difficult to read since (for me) there was too much sex including bestiality, incest and sex with minors, all presented in a somewhat matter-of-fact and also braggadocious manner. At first I didn’t believe Arenas’s claims about his exploits (5,000 sexual encounters before the 70’s?), but I recently learned about a CDC study of homosexual men with AIDs from the 80’s that gave numbers that were r I wasn’t really sure what to make of this book for a while. I found it beautifully evocative, but also difficult to read since (for me) there was too much sex including bestiality, incest and sex with minors, all presented in a somewhat matter-of-fact and also braggadocious manner. At first I didn’t believe Arenas’s claims about his exploits (5,000 sexual encounters before the 70’s?), but I recently learned about a CDC study of homosexual men with AIDs from the 80’s that gave numbers that were roughly consistent with this; the average total number of sexual partners of men participating in the study was around 1,000. So I’m more ready to accept this as just being well outside my own personal experience. For others who are bothered by the explicitness, do note that the second half contains less sex but more graphic details of murder and brutality.

I appreciated the book most for its vivid descriptions of poverty and oppression in communist Cuba. Under Fidel Castro's regime, homosexuals were discriminated against and sent to concentration camps. You couldn’t trust “friends” since they were often informers, a textbook psychological tactic used by authoritarian regimes (and familiar to me from readings about North Korea). There was massive censorship; it's really amazing how Arenas persevered as a writer in the face of this, risking imprisonment and rewriting entire novels multiple times after they were captured by censors.

After Arenas escaped as part of a mass emigration of Cubans by boat, he came to New York via Miami. He shares his critiques of both capitalism and the left in the US, and also describes the uprootedness he feels as an exile. Sadly, Arenas eventually became sick with AIDs and committed suicide; he wrote this memoir on his deathbed.

Before Night Falls is not an easy read. In addition to all the troubling and graphic content, many of the descriptions are misogynistic, there are offensive descriptions of “fairies” or feminine gay men, and Arenas often describes people only by the color of their skin. Furthermore, it was a bit hard to keep track of the numerous characters and follow the fragmented style. All this notwithstanding, the memoir succeeds at painting a striking and valuable image of life as a homosexual writer who was censored and persecuted in communist Cuba. ...more

1 like · Like · see review

May 30, 2018 Becki Iverson marked it as to-read

Dec 11, 2017 Cait marked it as did-not-finish

Shelves: books-by-poci, latinx-author, lgbtq-author, non-fiction, cuba

Jul 10, 2018 Anna added it

Jul 14, 2018 Sylvia Bull rated it liked it

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