Perhaps you have heard his name. Perhaps you’ve heard him mentioned in passing as one of, if not the greatest writer to ever emerge from Cuba. Perhaps you know his books have been published in dozens of languages all over the world, or that he has won several awards, including Best Foreign Novel in France for his book “Hallucinations”. Perhaps you might have heard of his autobiography, “Before Night Falls”, and that the editors of The New York Times Book Review hailed it as one of the fourteen best books of 1993. Or perhaps you might have seen the movie adaptation of “Before Night Falls”, a gritty and almost hallucinatory film directed by Julian Schnabel which garnered several Oscar nominations, including a Best Actor nod to Javier Bardiem who played Arenas.

Or perhaps you are one of the lucky ones, the ones who have been blessed enough to read the work of Reinaldo Arenas. Perhaps you have felt yourself transported into one of Arenas’ worlds, worlds of such texture and color and majesty that they take your breath away. Perhaps you have read and smelled the tulips growing in the breezeway that Adolfina planted, or the felt the grit of the guava paste Fortunato made. Perhaps you, as I do, look at things like the moon and the sea in a different way now because of the sheer power of Reinaldo Arenas’ words.

I can hear the questions beginning already. Why, Donna? Why, on Moorewatch, are you talking about this Cuban writer? What could Reinaldo Arenas possibly have to do with Michael Moore?

The answer, of course, is abundantly simple. Reinaldo Arenas has a very important story to tell about what life was like for him in Castro’s Cuba, and it is a story we all need to hear. After seeing how Moore depicted Cuban life in Sicko, it has become vital that we know and understand what Cuban life under the nightmarish dictatorship of Fidel Castro is truly like. We need the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.

Reinaldo Arenas is that truth.

After nearly 15 years of hiding, exile, torture, work camps and prisons, Reinaldo Arenas managed to escape from Castro’s regime in the 1980 Mariel boatlift. He spent the next ten years of his life alternately finishing his tremendous body of work and denouncing the hellish Castro dictatorship to anyone who would listen. He wrote essays, letters, and lectured about life under Castro all over the world. In 1988 he wrote an open letter to Fidel Castro demanding that Castro hold a plebiscite similar to the one held in Chile by Pinochet. The letter drew thousands of signatures from around the world, including those of eight Nobel laureates. The letter was internationally published, drawing the wrath of Castro and his supporters.

When Reinaldo Arenas committed suicide in 1990 after a long and terrible battle with AIDS, he issued a suicide note that was published around the world. In that note, he wrote “you are the heirs of all my terrors, but also of my hope that Cuba will soon be free.” Seventeen years later, his dream remains unrealized. Cuba is not free and Castro still rules the island with an iron fist. He is aided every day both by those support Castro’s illusion that Cuba is free and unoppressed, but also by those who know and remain silent.

Reinaldo Arenas would not remain silent. For twenty-five years Arenas fought – first to stay alive and then to scream to the world about the horrors that were happening in Cuba under Castro. Death silenced Arenas’ voice but not his spirit. His spirit lives on through his words and his work. His spirit lives on in his friends, his family, his supporters. And his spirit lives on in me, I who have been so moved by his work.

I am not Cuban or of Cuban descent. I have no Cuban relatives nor have I a drop of Cuban blood in my veins. What I am is simply a woman who has been so moved by the words of Reinaldo Arenas that I feel compelled to tell his story to the world, to fight as he did, to show the world the truth, his story and his truth.

Reinaldo Arenas is now silent, but I am not. Over the next few weeks I will tell you the story of Arenas’ life in Castro’s Cuba. It will amaze you, terrify you, bewilder you and move you. I want to you to listen to his story and know that it is the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. This is what it was like for Reinaldo Arenas. This is what it was like in living in constant terror under Castro’s iron fist in Cuba. This is what it is still like in Cuba. And until we all stand up and begin telling the truth and denouncing Fidel Castro as the oppressor and murderous dictator that he is, this is how it will always be in Cuba.

This is the story of Reinaldo Arenas….



“I come to speak your name so I may begin this dream again.” - Garden of Caressess



…to be continued in part two…