Cuban writer Reinaldo Arenas describes his poverty-stricken childhood in rural , 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. Arenas eventually took flight from Cuba via the Mariel boat lift and settled in New York. Unable to really reconcile himself to life in America away from the beloved country of his birth, Arenas committed suicide in 1990 at the age of 47, already dying from AIDS.
Author Biography
Reinaldo Arenas was born in Holgu n, Cuba, in 1943. His first novel, Singing from the Well, was awarded First Mention in Cuba s Cirilo Villaverde National Competition. It was to be his only book published in his native country. Both as a homosexual and a writer, he found himself persecuted by the Cuban government, and had to smuggle his work out of the country for publication in France. He left Cuba in 1980 and settled in New York, where he died of AIDS in 1990. He is the author of over 20 books, including novels, short stories and poems.
