Reinaldo Arenas

Reinaldo Arenas naci en Holgu n, Oriente, Cuba en 1943. El 7 de diciembre de 1990, exiliado, pusofin a su vida, responsabilizando a Fidel Castro de su decisi n, en carta testamento que escribi . Esconsiderado uno de los mejores escritores cubanos del siglo XX. Este libro, escrito a los 22 a os, es el primero de los cinco libros que componen la pentagon aareniana. Deslumbrante en su forma, llena de un impulso tel rico y una frescura profunda como losr os de la tierra de la que nace, esta obra escrita por un adolescente alucinado y genial. Celestino esuna defensa de la libertad y la imaginaci n creadora sobre la miseria, la barbaria y la ignorancia. Uncanto a la rebeld a y un ejemplo del poder trascendente de la literatura. Reinaldo Arenas was born in Holgu n, Oriente, Cuba in 1943. On December 7, 1990, in exile, heended his life, blaming Fidel Castro for his decision, in a letter of testament that he wrote. He isconsidered one of the best Cuban writers of the 20th century. This book, written at the age of 22, is the first of the five books that make up the Arenianpentagony. Dazzling in its form, full of a telluric impulse and a deep freshness like the rivers of theland from which it is born, this work written by a hallucinated and brilliant young man. Celestinois a defense of freedom and creative imagination over misery, barbarity and ignorance. A song torebellion and an example of the transcendent power of literature.

Reinaldo Arenas naci en Holgu n, Oriente, Cuba en 1943. El 7 dediciembre de 1990 puso fin a su vida, responsabilizando a Fidel Castrode su decisi n, en carta testamento que escribi . Es considerado unode los mejores escritores cubanos del siglo XX. El Portero fue el acontecimiento literario en Francia en 1988. La novela cuenta las ins litas aventura de un portero de un edificio delujo en Manhattan, New York. Fue de las tres novelas finalistas delPremio Medicis y y de ella escribieron en peri dicos como Le Monde, Liberation, Le Figaro, Nuevo D a, El Nuevo Herald y otros. La Novelle Observateur describi la novela: Arenas ha creado un mundoencantado pleno de realidades s rdicas y de un soberbio delirio barroco.=========Reinaldo Arenas was born in Holgu n, Oriente, Cuba in 1943. OnDecember 7, 1990, he ended his life and in a letter he left behind, heheld Fidel Castro responsible for this final decision. He is consideredone of the best Cuban writers of the twentieth century. El Portero was the literary event in France in 1988. The noveltells the unusual adventures of a doorman in a luxury building inManhattan, New York. This novel was one of the three finalist of theMedicis Prize and which was reviewed in newspapers such as LeMonde, Liberation, Le Figaro, Nuevo D a, El Nuevo Herald andothers. The Novelle Observateur described the novel: Arenas hascreated an enchanted world full of strange realities and a superb baroquedelirium.

Escritos de protesta social y pol tica en el que el reconociedo escritor cubano denuncia al r gimen castrista que lo ha hecho sufrir por sus preferencias sexuales, su necesidad de vivir y escribir libre y su amor a Cuba. Writings of social and political protest where this renowned Cuban writer denounces the Castro regime that made him suffer for his sexual preferences, his need to live and write freely and his love for Cuba.

The acclaimed memoir of homosexual 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. A Penguin Vitae Edition The astonishing 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 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 The Miami Herald 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. Penguin Classics launches a new hardcover series with five American classics that are relevant and timeless in their power, and part of a dynamic and diverse landscape of classic fiction and nonfiction from almost seventy-five years of classics publishing. Penguin Vitae provides readers with beautifully designed classics that have shaped the course of their lives, and welcomes new readers to discover these literary gifts of personal inspiration, intellectual engagement, and creative originality.

Un escritor de tremendo talento... una fuerza de la naturaleza, alguien nacido para escribir. / Jos Lezama Lima // Esta novela es fundamental para intentar establecer lo que podr a denominarse una po tica areniana, y lo es por sus aportes para la reflexi n cr tica de un elemento que est presente a lo largo y ancho de la obra de este escritor cubano: la voluntad de reescritura como g nesis ltima del texto literario ./ Emiliano Mastache // Un escritor notable tanto por su talento como por su dignidad intelectual. Soy su lector y su admirador. / Octavio Paz

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 (1943–1990) remains one of the most famous Cu¬ban 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 will be the only volume cur¬rently in print 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, humour, 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.

Matka Havannaan sisältää kolme tyylillisesti poikkeavaa tarinaa, joista jokainen ennustaa kirjailijan kuolemaa: pako Havannasta, sopeutumattomuus New Yorkiin ja paluu vankilasaarelle. Etenkin kirjan päättävässä tarinassa ? pahaenteisessä, mutta nostalgisessa paluussa kotimaahan ? aavemaisena muistona kangasteleva Havanna edustaa päähenkilölle sekä intohimoista elämää että väistämätöntä itsetuhoa. Siten pakonomaisen paluun Havannaan voi lukea fiktiivisenä päiväkirjakuvauksena kirjailijan viimeisistä päivistä. Vuonna 1990 kuollut Arenas on kuubalaisen kirjallisuuden omaperäisempiä nimiä, maagisen realismin edelläkävijä ja esikuva monelle latinalaisamerikkalaiselle kirjailijalle. Häneltä on aikaisemmin ilmestynyt suomeksi Harhanäkyjen maailma (1989).

In the brilliant tradition of Don Quixote and Candide, this passionate novel by the author of Before Night Falls is a modern masterpiece of Latin American fiction. Fray Servando--priest, blasphemer, dueler of monsters, irresistible lover, misunderstood prophet, prisoner, and consummate escape artist--wanders among the vice-ridden populations of eighteenth-century Europe and the Americas, fleeing dungeons, a marriage-minded woman, a slave ship captain, and the Inquisition. Whether by burro, by boat, or by the back of a whale, Fray Servando's journey is at once funny and romantic, melancholy and profound--a tale rooted in history, yet outrageously hallucinatory. "An impenitent amalgam of truth and invention, historical fact and outrageous make-believe . . . a philosophical black comedy."--The New York Times

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.

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 the first, the mother finds her son in bed with another boy; in the second, the son is imprisoned in one of Castro s camps for homosexuals."

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.