Twayne's World Authors SeriesSeries Editors: Frank Day, Clemson University Joseph M. Flora, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Pattie Cowell, Colorado State University Ruth K. MacDonald A volume in Twayne's Authors Series of literary criticism offers a critical introduction to the life and work of a particular writer, to the history and influence of a literary movement, or to the development of a literary genre. Primarily devoted to critical interpretation and discussion of an author's work, the study not only takes account of major literary trends and important contributions in scholarship and criticism but also provides new critical insights and an original point of view. Authors Series volumes are rooted in the original works themselves and address readers ranging from advanced high school students to university professors. The book suggests to the informed reader new ways of considering a writer's work. A reader new to the work under examination will, after reading the Authors Series study, be compelled to turn to the originals, bringing to the reading a basic knowledge and fresh critical perspectives.Groundbreaking in its bold articulation of homosexual desire in an area of the world traditionally known for its machismo and homophobia, the work of the late Cuban author Reinaldo Arenas became widely known to the English reading public with the publication of the English translation of his autobiography, Before Night Falls. The critical and commercial success of this work marked an important milestone in Latin American letters, for it was the first openly homosexual autobiography ever published. Francisco Soto not only explores the significance of this memoir, but also traces for the first time the representation of homoerotic themes and issues in Arenas's entire oeuvre. Arenas's writings--passionate, rebellious, and irreverent--fascinate readers and provoke further dialogue and discussion concerning the homosexual's problematic relationship with society.
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Book Description
Editorial Reviews
Book Description
"The most original and significant recent contribution to scholarship about the work of Reinaldo Arenas. . . . Soto is perfectly bilingual and his translations are excellent."--Roberto Valero, George Washington University
"A major contribution to the field of contemporary Cuban narrative. . . . Soto brings a solid knowledge of Arenas's work and a demonstrated aptitude to write with clarity and originality on a most difficult and extraordinary novelist."--Reinaldo Sánchez, Florida International University
Reinaldo Arenas is considered one of the most important Cuban writers of recent decades. His most ambitious project was a pentalogy on Cuban history, a magnificent literary legacy that he worked on intermittently from the time he was eighteen. Three of the novels are available in English, and the last two (completed shortly before his suicide in 1990 and published in their original Spanish one year later) will be available in English shortly.
Arenas described these five books as both a writer's autobiography and a metaphor of Cuban history. Francisco Soto's study, the first to examine the quintet in its entirety and in English, considers the five-book sequence in the context of Cuba's state-sanctioned tradition that promotes documentary novels of immediate and practical utility.
Soto argues that Arenas subverted that tradition, insisting that the writer's voice must be a call for freedom, challenging both literary and social establishments. Arenas's criticism of the Cuban Revolution was more than an attack against communism, Soto says; it was an angry cry against injustice and against a system that persecuted him simply for being homosexual. The characters of the pentalogy--"dissidents, 'extravagants,' dreamers, freethinkers, homosexuals"--represent marginal persectives that Arenas believed should be given a voice in documentary novels but were not.
The appendix contains a conversation (translated into English) between Soto and Arenas that took place in 1987--revised and expanded by Arenas shortly before his death--in which the novelist talks at length about the pentalogy and its genesis.
About the Author
Francisco Soto, who was born in Cuba, is assistant professor of Spanish and Latin American literature at the College of Staten Island, City University of New York. His articles, notes, and reviews (in both English and Spanish) on Reinaldo Arenas's work have appeared in such journals as Revista Iberoamericana, Cuban Studies, Confluencia, Hispania, and Utah Foreign Language Review. In 1991 he received first prize for translation from the New York Latin American Writers Institute.
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