Before Night Falls: A Memoir

I bought Before Night Falls by Reinaldo Arenas after seeing the movie version (yeah, I watched some of Brokeback Mountain, FYI). It was the artistic ambience of Arenas' Cuba in the movie that prompted me to get the book. Yet the author's struggle against the oppressive Communist system was the redeeming social value of this autobiography. For a fellow who spent half of his leisure time having sex with other men when not indulging his literary tastes, it was quite an accomplishment indeed. Before his arrest, Arenas describes how Cuba went from the frying pan to the fire in ousting Batista in favor of Castro. As he points out, the revolution was not for everyone, specifically anyone who disagreed with Fidel's bizarro Commie philosophy. He instituted a rat system that would have been Heinrich Himmler's wet dream, imprisoning anyone who did not squeal on 'enemies of the State'. This resulted in friends betraying friends, families exiling relatives, and an epidemic of suicide for those who had no hope of escaping the prison-like island. Counterrevolutionaries were defined as not just faeries, but criminals, asocials, most intellectuals, and anyone who disagreed with the regime. Possibly the most astonishing thing is how people continued to indulge themselves regardless of mortal danger. Arenas regularly engaged in sex on the beach (no, not the drink) and had a few of his books smuggled to France before he was arrested. According to Arenas, Cuban prisons are the worst in human history, and it's entirely believable when considering the subtropical climate. The latrines are where it all begins, trenches in the dirt floor of a ward crowded with two hundred inmates. He describes the stench mingled with the body odor of prisoners whose clothes are never washed - inmates are doused with a bucket of water twice a week. Clouds of flies swarm around these latrines, and one withdraws to the infestation of fleas, lice and ticks throughout the facility. Prisoners released their tensions by maiming and murdering one another, and guards stood by when not directly participating. Arenas survived two years before French activists secured his release. Shortly afterward, Castro emptied his prisons and expelled all qualified undesirables from Mariel Harbor (remember Scarface?) in 1980. Arenas made it to the USA, and died of AIDS a couple of years later. One of the issues that prevails to this day is the rejection of the exiled Cubans by leftists here in America. Ironically, he and the other persecuted 'anti-revolutionaries' got their greatest support from liberals around the world before they were deported. Once they left Cuba, they were soon reclassified as part of the conservative-supported anti-Castro movement in the States trying to sabotage discussions with the regime. The same groups that were promoting Cuban writers' literature eventually would not let their voices be heard as Cuban-US relations were redefined. Granted, this is an unblinking self-portrait of an unrepentant pervert. Yet the quality of his poetry and his testimonio earns his place in literary history. He clung to his writings as ferociously as his aberrations, and his sheer lust for life and love of nature is manifested through his work. You may never read me singing a faerie's praises like this again (uh, BTW, faerie is just one of the words he uses to describe himself and those like him), but---Reinaldo Arenas was truly one of a kind.

Needed for a class. Came in time and was the correct text.

Reinaldo Arenas very candid in telling his story as a gay man in socialist Cuba. Growing up in a farm raising life stocks, sex and violence were regulars. He told of his sex life which was quite juicy -- thousands of sex partners. Anyhow, I valued the most on his writing about socialism under Fidel Castro. It was not utopic as the democrat-socialists are dreaming of. Commoners and intellects were controlled by a rigid regime. Intellects were only allowed to praise the regime, else, they were chastised, persecuted, tortured or killed. Castro did not allow people to leave. It was a tremendous challenge and luck that Arenas managed to sneak out of the country. He died poor of aids. Some publishers benefited from his book, but did not pay him.

I really enjoyed this chatty memoir, but it may not be to everyone's taste. I particularly loved Arenas' description of sexuality before, during, and after the Cuban Revolution. As the revolution gained steam, many Cubans were giddy with delight, which engendered a camaraderie that made folks more willing to overlook others' differences. What did it matter that the neighbors might be gay? They were all comrades in arms! After Castro took control of the country, however, the party quickly ended. Cuba's economy worsened, and so did the public's attitudes toward homosexuals, intellectuals, and others who were soon deemed degenerates. Life became a never-ending purity test to determine who was us (i.e. "true Cubans") and who was them (i.e. "counterrevolutionaries"). The same story has played out, one way or another, in Russia following the Bolshevik Revolts, in China during the Cultural Revolution, and elsewhere throughout history: gays are fine when they're helping to overturn a regime, but after that, not so much. I also appreciated Arenas' depiction of everyday life in Castro's Cuba--the way housing was allocated, food was rationed, leisure activities were restricted, and so on. As Americans, our understanding of Cuba and its people is very heavily filtered. When I visited a few years ago, I got a more nuanced sense of the country, and Arenas provided yet more food for thought. That said, my enjoyment was tempered by Arenas' tone, which is deeply, deeply opinionated. To be sure, he's not trying to write an authoritative, objective textbook. Before Night Falls is a memoir, and it's naturally going to be a little breezy, a little gossipy, and occasionally, a little catty. But in some cases--for example, when Arenas gloats about creating cruel tongue-twisters to ridicule someone who's offended him--he comes off as petty, vindictive, and self-aggrandizing. Unfortunately, that makes me question the veracity of his other stories, like the manner in which he left the country and the details of his stunningly long stint hiding from the police. Also--and this is in no way Arenas' fault--he writes about so, so many authors, artists, and personalities that I'd never heard of, it was practically impossible to keep track of the cast of characters. Perhaps that's because Americans like me have been cut off from Cuban culture and haven't been exposed to many of the country's artists. Whatever the reason, it meant that at times, I simply had to plow through name-dropping sections without attempting to remember who was whom. All in all, I'd say that if you want a subjective, witty perspective on life in post-revolutionary Cuba, Before Night Falls is a perfect read. If you're looking for a history lesson, you should probably keep looking.

Reinaldo Arenas lived through Cuba's transition from the Batista dictatorship to the Castro dictatorship. As a gay writer resisting Castro's imposition of Communism, he suffered brutal persecution. The book chronicles his attempts to elude the informers and those who would, and eventually did, imprison him for his writings. His attempts to escape from Cuba ended when the Mariel boat lift took hundreds of Cubans to the United States. Living in New York City, Arenas eventually contracted AIDS. He died in 1990. In "Before Night Falls", Arenas describes the joy his sexuality brought him through the years and how much it meant to be able to share that gift with his partners. There is a lot more mention of his sexual adventures in the book than in the excellent film that was made from the book. This is not erotic writing though - there are no steamy passages describing intimate details of sexual encounters. Sex happened and he describes the circumstances and the excitement and fulfillment it gave him.

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 in passing (if at all) in the book, and one of the film's central sequences, the balloon escape, gets one sentence. Where Arenas and Schnabel intersect is in the lushness, the ability to find celebration and remarkable beauty inside the ugliness of the Castro regime (and, for a few years' worth, the Batista regime before it). Arenas' memoir is also likely to shock more than a few in its sexual explicitness (another aspect Schnabel rather shied away from, which I found a tad surprising while reading the book), but so be it. There is nothing gratuitous about either Arenas' promiscuity or his literary descriptions of it; it's no different than using the language of excess to describe the beastliness of a life that involves hand-to-mouth poverty and political censure. And throughout, more than anything (and perhaps this is what makes the book so powerful), Before Night Falls is a celebration, both of Arenas' life and the lives of many other Cuban writers persecuted as dissidents in the latter half of the twentieth century. **** 1/2

The story is good but the writing is redundant and only so so. Maybe it is the translation.

An incredible book. Beautifully written, and well done to the translator..!

An intense autobiography from an author of the Latin/Spanish intelligensia from Cuba. For us readers from the South-east Asia, Reinaldo Arenas comes out as a sad figure, an opponent & exile from an authoritarian regime, that we of a colonial past can empathize with another caged soul from a land yet to be truely liberated. His own wasted life in exile as a gay man struggling with drugs and other addictions, and his final tragic death by suicide makes a bitter-sweet record of a human journey of want, unbridled desires, defeat & yet of great hope!.

An incredible, unique LGBTQI+ perspective from Castro's Cuba that chronicles the life of Reinaldo Arenas. Confronting yet tastefully humorous in parts, this memoir provides a fascinating insight into the early years of Cuban communism.

Probably one of the most underrated Latin American/Cuban authors.

an inside in depth first person perspective of growing up in very impoverished Cuba and his life struggles

A story one a young mans courage and fortitude in a country going through change politics and sexuality