Before Night Falls

Reviews / Votes

"Dolores Koch's translation is a great achievement. She is not only accurate and faithful to the original but she even captures Arenas's flashes of lyricism and melancholy...Reading Arenas is like witnessing a bare consciousness in the process of assimilating the most universal, but powerful, human experiences and turning them into literature. Because of this, "Before Night Falls" is crucial to understanding his works. But, more important, it is a record of human cruelty and the toils of one individual to survive them." -- The New York Times

"One of the most shattering testimonials ever written on the subject of oppression and defiance"-- Mario Vargas Llosa

"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." -- Garth Greenwell

"A document of a particular and disturbing honesty by one of the truly great writers to come out of Latin America." - Chicago Tribune

"One of the most searing satirical writers of the 20th century, a worthy successor to Aristophanes and Swift." -- Jaime Manrique - Village Voice


"In this powerful memoir of passions both personal and political, Cuban author Arenas describes his voyage from peasant poverty to his oppression as a dissident writer and homosexual." -- Publishers Weekly


"A last testament that resonates with passion for the freedom of the human spirit and for the author's beloved Cuba: a distinguished addition to the literature of dissent and exile." -- Kirkus Reviews