{"product_id":"before-night-falls-a-memoir-paperback","title":"Before Night Falls: A Memoir - Paperback","description":"\u003cp\u003eby \u003cb\u003eReinaldo Arenas\u003c\/b\u003e (Author), \u003cb\u003eDolores M. Koch\u003c\/b\u003e (Translator)\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003e\"Any attempt to reckon with Cuba's torturous twentieth century will have to take into account Arenas's monumental work ... an essential human testimony, joyful and enraged, a triumph of conscience.\" -- \u003cb\u003eGarth Greenwell\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e \u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eThe acclaimed memoir of queer Cuban author Reinaldo Arenas chronicling his tumultuous yet luminary life, from his impoverished upbringing in Cuba to his imprisonment at the hands of a Communist regime \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eThe astonishing memoir by visionary Cuban writer Reinaldo Arenas \"is a book above all about being free,\" said \u003ci\u003eThe New York Review of Books\u003c\/i\u003e--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 homosexual, his flight from Cuba via the Mariel boat lift, and his subsequent life and the events leading to his death in New York. In what \u003ci\u003eThe Miami Herald\u003c\/i\u003e calls his \"deathbed ode to eroticism,\" Arenas breaks through the code of secrecy and silence that protects the privileged in a state where homosexuality is a political crime. Recorded in simple, straightforward prose, this is the true story of the Kafkaesque life and world re-created in the author's acclaimed novels.\u003ch3\u003eAuthor Biography\u003c\/h3\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eReinaldo Arenas\u003c\/b\u003e was born in Cuba in 1943. In the 1970s, he was imprisoned multiple times for being gay, which clashed with the beliefs of the Communist regime. Despite the hardships imposed during his imprisonment, Arenas produced a significant body of work, including his \u003ci\u003ePentagonia\u003c\/i\u003e, a set of five novels written between the 1960s and 1980s that comprise a secret history of post-revolutionary Cuba: \u003ci\u003eSinging from the Well\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eFarewell to the Sea\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003ePalace of the White Skunks\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eColor of Summer\u003c\/i\u003e, and \u003ci\u003eThe Assault\u003c\/i\u003e. In 1980, he was one of 120,000 Cubans who arrived in the United States on the Mariel boatlift. Arenas, ill with AIDS, committed suicide in 1990 shortly after completing \u003ci\u003eBefore Night Falls. \u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cdiv\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eNumber of Pages:\u003c\/strong\u003e 336\u003c\/div\u003e\u003cdiv\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eDimensions:\u003c\/strong\u003e 0.7 x 7.76 x 5.09 IN\u003c\/div\u003e\u003cdiv\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003ePublication Date:\u003c\/strong\u003e October 01, 1994\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Books by splitShops","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":51753681682720,"sku":"9780140157659","price":27.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0974\/9764\/5344\/files\/2ee394e81bcdfb1ab577ae8f40c32436.webp?v=1780025497","url":"https:\/\/ebocreations.com\/products\/before-night-falls-a-memoir-paperback","provider":"The E-Book Oasis LLC","version":"1.0","type":"link"}