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Reinaldo Arenas was born to a poverty-stricken family in rural
Cuba. By the time of his death in New York four decades later, he
had become one of Cuba's most important poets, an outspoken critic
of Castro's regime and one of the leading gay voices of the
twentieth century. In Before Night Falls, Arenas tells of his
odyssey from young rebel fighting for the Revolution, through his
suppression as a writer, his disillusionment with Castro, his
imprisonment and torture, to his eventual exile from Cuba to New
York, where in 1987 he was diagnosed with AIDS. He committed
suicide in 1990, ending a life of constant struggle against
repression. In a farewell note, Arenas wrote: Due to my delicate
state of health and to the terrible depression that causes me not
to be able to continue writing and struggling for the freedom of
Cuba, I am ending my life ... I do not want to convey to you a
message of defeat, but of continued struggle and hope. Cuba will be
free. I already am. (signed) Reinaldo Arenas
Reinaldo Arenas has been widely praised for his prodigious,
explosive talent. A terrifying and beautiful novel, Old Rosa is
composed of two stories that converge on a single charged point in
the lives of a Cuban mother and son. In "Old Rosa," we meet Rosa as
a young woman, tall, proud, shrewd, always in control. But her
world begins to crumble when her oldest son runs off to join
Castro's rebels and she finds her youngest son, her "brightest
star," in bed with another boy. The second story, "The Brightest
Star," finds this youngest son in one of Castro's camps for
homosexuals, subjected to mind-numbing labor and unrelieved
brutality. To survive, he writes'on paper bags and torn-off scraps
of political posters, and in margins of stolen official documents.
He writes to open a window of freedom, to preserve that dream of
beauty and love, with such passion and soaring poetry that we can
see the magnificent castles, the lush hanging gardens, the crystal
palaces of his imagination"as they blossom and dissolve around the
image of Old Rosa, their fateful confrontation, and the vision of
her house in flames.
Reinaldo Arenas is the most highly acclaimed writer of Cuba's
post-revolutionary generation. The Doorman, his first work set in
the United States, breaks new ground with the extraordinary and
tragic story of Juan, a young Cuban refugee who becomes a doorman
at a luxury apartment building in Manhattan. Oddly alienated from
the tenants, Juan finds himself being seduced by their pets-a bear,
a rattlesnake, an orangutan, goldfish, cats, dogs-who speak to him,
determined to recruit him to their cause: a revolt against humans
and human society, and a mass flight to liberty. Fantastic,
satirical, dizzyingly inventive, The Doorman is a bittersweet
parable about freedom and community, told with a profound sense of
humanity.
Critics worldwide have praised Reinaldo Arenas's writing. His extraordinary memoir, Before Night Falls, was named one of the fourteen "Best Books of 1993" by the editors of The New York Times Book Review and has now been made into a major motion picture.
The Color of Summer, Arenas's finest comic achievement, is also the fulfillment of his life's work, the Pentagonía, a five-volume cycle of novels he began writing in his early twenties. Although it is the penultimate installment in his "secret history of Cuba," it was, in fact, the last book Arenas wrote before his death in 1990. A Rabelaisian tale of survival by wits and wit, The Color of Summer is ultimately a powerful and passionate story about the triumph of the human spirit over the forces of political and sexual repression.
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The Assault (Paperback, New ed)
Reinaldo Arenas; Translated by Andrew Hurley; Introduction by Thomas Colchie
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R548
R471
Discovery Miles 4 710
Save R77 (14%)
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Ships in 10 - 15 working days
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In this, the final volume in the series of five novels that constitute his "secret history of Cuba", Reinaldo Arenas paints a harrowing, and at times boldly entertaining, Kafka-esque picture of a dehumanized people living in a world where homosexuality is a crime punishable by death and a cockroach hunt makes for a national holiday. Narrated by a hate-filled government torturer who has become an agent for the "Bureau of Counterwhispering"," The Assault follows his travels through a blackly humorous shadowland as he winnow out whisperers, sexual deviants, and dissidents of every sort--until memory has been banished and spoken language has been nearly forgotten.
His mother talks piously of the heaven that awaits the good, and disciplines him with an ox prod. His grandmother burns his precious crosses for kindling. His cousins meet to plot their grandfather's death. Yet in the hills surrounding his home, another reality exists, a place where his mother wears flowers in her hair, and his cousin Celestino, a poet who inscribes verse on the trunks of trees, understands his visions. The first novel in Reinaldo Arenas's "secret history of Cuba," a quintet he called the Pentagonia, Singing from the Well is by turns explosively crude and breathtakingly lyrical. In the end, it is a stunning depiction of a childhood besieged by horror--and a moving defense of liberty and the imagination in a world of barbarity, persecution, and ignorance.
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.
In this brilliant, apocalyptic vision of Castro's Cuba, we meet a young couple who leave the dreariness of Havana and spend six days at a small seaside retreat, where they hope to recapture the desire and carefree spirit that once united them. In a stunning juxtaposition of narrative voices, the wife recounts the grim reality of her marriage, the demands of motherhood, and her loss of freedom, innocence, and hope; while her husband, a disillusioned poet and disenchanted revolutionary, recalls his political struggles and laments the artistic and homosexual freedom that has been denied him. Rich in hallucination, myth and fantasy, Farewell to the Sea is a fierce and unforgettable work that speaks for the entire human condition.
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Autoepitaph - Selected Poems (Hardcover)
Reinaldo Arenas; Edited by Camelly Cruz-Martes; Translated by Kelly Washbourne
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R2,442
R2,195
Discovery Miles 21 950
Save R247 (10%)
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Ships in 12 - 17 working days
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"In "Autoepitaph," Reinaldo Arenas soars above death, conquers
terror, and sees himself reflected in the face of his lover, the
Cuban sea."--Flora Gonzalez Mandri, coeditor and cotranslator of
"In the Vortex of the Cyclone: Selected Poems by Excilia Saldana"
"A powerful tribute to Arenas, a poet who explores the meaning of
our ethical standing in the world as well as the transient nature
of our souls. In this collection, we journey with Arenas into his
struggles and victories, accompanied by his voice, filled with
fortitude and hope. The English translation pays tribute to the
original Spanish text."--Marjorie Agosin, author of "Of Earth and
Sea: A Chilean Memoir" Reinaldo Arenas (1943-1990) remains one of
the most famous Cuban writers in exile. His work constitutes a
monument of resistance literature, but much of the focus has been
on his novels and his autobiography, "Before Night Falls," chosen
as one of the ten best books of 1993 by the "New York Times."
Because his poetic output has not been widely translated,
"Autoepitaph" is the first and only career-spanning volume of
Arenas's poetry in translation in any language.
This bilingual volume includes narrative poems, sonnets, excerpts
from Arenas's prose poems, and previously unpublished works from
his papers at Princeton University. Both the Spanish originals as
well as English translations seamlessly capture the poet's sarcasm,
humor, and powerful rhythms. Camelly Cruz-Martes provides an
outline for Arenas's major poetic strategies, as well as context
for the themes that unite his poems: resistance against
colonialism, political and personal repression, existential
alienation, and the desire for transcendence through art.
Mona and Other Tales covers Reinaldo Arenas's entire career: his recently rediscovered debut (which got him a job at the Biblioteca Nacional in Havana), stories written in a political prison, and some of his last works, written in exile. Many of the stories have not previously appeared in English.
Here is the tender story of a boy who recognizes evil for the first time and decides to ignore it; the tale of a writer struggling between the demands of creativity and of fame; common people dealing with changes brought about by revolution and exile; a romp with a famous, dangerous woman in the Metropolitan Museum; an outrageous fantasy that picks up where Garcia Lorca's famous play The House of Bernardo Alba ends. Told with Arenas's famous wit and humanity, Mona makes a perfect introduction to this important writer.
Translated from the Spanish by Dolores Koch.
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