Reinaldo Arenas: Multifaceted Cuban Writer

Reinaldo Arenas: A Freedom Writer

 Arenas wrote many stories about his life and the hardships faced by the youth during Castro’s reign in Cuba. While in prison for homosexual activity, he continued to write and publish his literary works by smuggling them out of jail. His words knew freedom from oppression before he did. His art, his writing, deals with the fantasia and the mystic of lyricism and poetry to attract readers and create characters that are worth investing in. He published many novels and poems while in prison that he would traffic out of jail to be published outside of Cuba. 

Reinaldo Arenas: A Gay Icon

He was gay when it was not acceptable to be gay. Castro called them “diseased” and “a stain on Cuba and the Revolution” but Arenas started his own revolution. A Revolution that allowed for sexual freedom and happiness to take over a nation, but it wasn’t enough.

Reinaldo Arenas: Writes to Freedom in America

He and others that were deemed deplorable by Castro were sent to America to cleanse Cuba of its crime. Arenas escaped because Castro had no need for a gay writer disturbing his reign and his vision for Cuba.

In Singing from the Well, Arenas takes inspiration from his own life and makes a fictional account detailing his hardships and the vision he had of himself and for himself.