
Reinaldo Arenas and the Cultural Canon
Queer Intertextuality and Rewriting the Self
Angela L. Willis(Author)
University Press of Florida
Published on 29. April 2026
Book
Paperback/Softback
294 pages
978-1-68340-624-2 (ISBN)
Description
Exploring how Reinaldo Arenas reimagined literary classics as queer, subversive parodies that undermine oppressive power
This book offers a fresh reading of the work of Reinaldo Arenas, showing how the Cuban writer reimagined literary and visual classics as parodies that challenge oppressive power structures. Incorporating his own life experiences, Arenas transformed canonical figures, genres, and narratives into carnivalesque intertexts that dismantle dominant ideologies. By queering Cuba's past and present, this book shows, Arenas's works offer a creative blueprint for resistance.
Angela Willis demonstrates how Arenas drew heavily on established sources-repurposing early texts on the Spanish Inquisition, mimicking novels set on colonial Cuban plantations by Jose Lezama Lima and Cirilo Villaverde, and engaging with visual works such as Bosch's The Garden of Earthly Delights. Taking a comparativist, intertextual approach, this book offers new ways to explore the texts Arenas parodies. It also discusses two overlooked pieces by Arenas-an unfinished film script of Lezama Lima's Paradiso and a key essay on "avant-garde" narrative-along with the original manuscript and audio tapes linked to the writer's autobiography, Antes que anochezca (Before Night Falls). The close readings and little-known archival materials in this book provide new insights into Arenas's artistic dissidence.
This book offers a fresh reading of the work of Reinaldo Arenas, showing how the Cuban writer reimagined literary and visual classics as parodies that challenge oppressive power structures. Incorporating his own life experiences, Arenas transformed canonical figures, genres, and narratives into carnivalesque intertexts that dismantle dominant ideologies. By queering Cuba's past and present, this book shows, Arenas's works offer a creative blueprint for resistance.
Angela Willis demonstrates how Arenas drew heavily on established sources-repurposing early texts on the Spanish Inquisition, mimicking novels set on colonial Cuban plantations by Jose Lezama Lima and Cirilo Villaverde, and engaging with visual works such as Bosch's The Garden of Earthly Delights. Taking a comparativist, intertextual approach, this book offers new ways to explore the texts Arenas parodies. It also discusses two overlooked pieces by Arenas-an unfinished film script of Lezama Lima's Paradiso and a key essay on "avant-garde" narrative-along with the original manuscript and audio tapes linked to the writer's autobiography, Antes que anochezca (Before Night Falls). The close readings and little-known archival materials in this book provide new insights into Arenas's artistic dissidence.
More details
Language
English
Place of publication
Florida
United States
Target group
Professional and scholarly
College/higher education
Product notice
Paperback (trade)
Dimensions
Height: 229 mm
Width: 152 mm
Thickness: 17 mm
Weight
481 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-68340-624-2 (9781683406242)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions

E-Book
05/2026
1st Edition
University of Florida Press
€33.99
Available for download
Person
Angela L. Willis, professor of Hispanic studies and Latin American studies and assistant dean of educational policy at Davidson College, is coauthor of The Dissidence of Reinaldo Arenas: Queering Literature, Politics, and the Activist Curriculum.
Content
Acknowledgments
List of Abbreviations and Acronyms
Note on Translations
Introduction. A Dissident's Manifesto of Survival: Parody and Intertextual Images of the Self
1. An Agonista's Life Story / Storied Life
2. Parodic Readings of the Archive as Neobaroque Picaresque Revelations: El mundo alucinante
3. Carnivalesque Destruction of the Plantation: La Loma del Angel and an Incomplete Filmic Vision of Paradiso
4. Drawing Dangerous Desire: Intertextual (Self-)Portraits in "Mona" and The Garden of Earthly Delights
5. Unveiling and Unraveling "Un escandalo postumo": An Intratextual Reading of the Antes que anochezca Manuscript
Conclusion. Looking Back: Rewriting Reinaldo Arenas into the Future
Notes
Bibliography
Index
List of Abbreviations and Acronyms
Note on Translations
Introduction. A Dissident's Manifesto of Survival: Parody and Intertextual Images of the Self
1. An Agonista's Life Story / Storied Life
2. Parodic Readings of the Archive as Neobaroque Picaresque Revelations: El mundo alucinante
3. Carnivalesque Destruction of the Plantation: La Loma del Angel and an Incomplete Filmic Vision of Paradiso
4. Drawing Dangerous Desire: Intertextual (Self-)Portraits in "Mona" and The Garden of Earthly Delights
5. Unveiling and Unraveling "Un escandalo postumo": An Intratextual Reading of the Antes que anochezca Manuscript
Conclusion. Looking Back: Rewriting Reinaldo Arenas into the Future
Notes
Bibliography
Index