October 28, 2012

Before Night Falls is an autobiography written by Reinaldo Arenas (protagonist), a

Cuban male who was born in 1943 and committed suicide in 1990 after years of suffering from
AIDS. This novel includes Arenas life as a child until his last days before his death when he
writes a suicide letter blaming Fidel Castro majorly, among other traumatizing events, as the
factors that caused him to end his life. During his childhood, Arenas was raised in a crowded
house, filled with his aunts, cousins, and mother (all had been abandoned by their husbands). The
economic condition of the family was not favorable, and his moms neglect on him caused
Reinaldo to spend majority of his time connected to nature: eating dirt or having erotic
encounters with animals. The lack of masculine presence and authority in the house may have
been one of the factors that determined his sexual preferences towards men. Arenas explicitly
narrates all of his eroticism throughout the novel. The only time he saw his father was while
walking in the street and the only thing he received from him was two pesos (related to Black
Boy, when Richards dad offers him a nickel). During his lifetime, Cubas political situation was
deplorable, from the overthrow of Batistas dictatorship and later the communist ideology of
Fidel Castrowho can be seen as the antagonist since he didnt allow Reinaldo to flourish as a
writer. Human rights were violated, the economy got worse, poverty increased, human welfare
decreased. Due to Arenas homosexuality and his writings that were seen as offensive to the
President, he was constantly being persecuted by authorities and sent to jail a couple of times.
Luckily he could flee to the United States where he died years later. The novel is based on the
theme of oppression, since from a young age until his last days the author suffered from internal
and external oppression. He grew up with the idea that his mother didnt care about him and with
no freedom of expression.
I recommend this book to the readers who like autobiographies and memoirs. It is really
similar to the summer novel we read, Black Boy by Richard Wright, since its also an
autobiography in which the authors suffered from the lack of a paternal figure and poverty. If
you enjoyed that novel, you probably would like this one. Also I strongly suggest that the readers
are open-minded, tolerant, and mature since the novel contains explicit sexual descriptions and
mentions the harshness of Castros regime. The main strengths of Before Night Falls is that the
events the author experienced during his lifetime are really dramatic but at the same time
interesting, captivating the readers attention. In contrast, the weaknesses of the book are that it
lacks profound descriptions and the physical division of the novel, with paragraphs or pages of
only one event, instead of writing in chapters enabling a fluently lecture without pauses.