#their tyrannical leaders and paying the ultimate price for it

[leechblades]

my kingdom to write tikade someday .

[izdamann]

“Before Night Falls” by Reinaldo Arenas

“Before Night Falls” is a inspirational story of resiliency against themes of oppression, nationalism and persecution offered by author Reinaldo Arenas. Arenas, a man determined to expose the atrocities of the continuous oppressive generational Cuban dictatorship through the events of his life from childhood through early adulthood.  The story sets the tone of truth by a writer who uses his talents for exposition.  Reinaldo Arenas’ “Before Night Falls” details painful insightful stories of life in a volatile country.

When critically analyzing  and understanding “Before Night Falls”  I believe it is important for a brief description of Cuba’s atmosphere while Reinaldo Arenas was a citizen there to understand the gravity of the literature.   At the time Cuba’s long standing dictator Fulcencio Batista was a corrupt leader whose greed would lead to his demise.  Fulgencio Batista would solely benefit from establishing the financial assets of outside countries within Cuba that the people of Cuba would not benefit from.  In addition to the corrupt financial practices, the government's oppressive practices allowed for brutally physical policing tactics against its own citizens.   In these accounts of events told from Arenas’ point of view he starts out by detailing how conditions under Batista’s dictatorship were repressive, in the section titled “Politics” Arenas states, “After the death of Chibás, things got easier for the political crooks who always managed, one way or another, to control the island of Cuba. In 1952 a military coup led by Fulgencio Batista brought him to power again, and it became impossible for the Orthodox Party, or any other party, to win elections. Batista’s dictatorship was repressive from the start, not only politically but morally as well” which is the cause for the growing tensions which ultimately led to the revolution of 1959.   Reinaldo Arenas continues to describe the oppressive tactics of the government while under the Batista regime, “One day we were preparing ñame [a tropical tuber] cuttings to be planted on the farm, when we saw a couple of country policemen coming our way.  That filled us with dread; the police never made social calls”.  The cuban dictator while in power would continue to satisfy his greed for money while the people of Cuba would starve because of the lack of opportunities.  Arenas goes on to state, “While Batista’s dictatorship continued to oppress the country, the economy deteriorated, at least for poor peasants such as my grandfather or my uncles, who could seldom find work at the sugar mills as cane cutters.” “Things got so bad that my grandfather decided to sell the farm, about a hundred acres, and move to Holguín, where he planned to open a small vegetable and fruit stand”.  The oppressive financially unprosperous conditions of life on the island would force families to make impossible decisions.  Years of brutality against its own people and the unprosperous condition of the country paved the way for growing tensions by the Cuban people.  Those tensions would result in an effort to forcefully remove Fulgencio Batista from power and relieve Cuba of his corrupt reign.  That effort would be realized as “The Cuban Revolution of 1959” led by an ambitious Fidel Castro.  

Fidel Castro would begin his revolution with promises of a new government.  Initially Castro would attempt to forcefully remove Batista from power only to fail.  It would be his third attempt that would prove successful.  Leading an army of guerilla soldiers, the citizens of Cuba who were camped in the mountains of Cuba, Castro would systematically defeat Batista military forces culminating in the overtaking of Havana the Cuban capital.  Through the revolution of 1959 the cuban people liberated themselves from the oppressive clutches of one dictator in Fulgencio Bautista only to pave the way for another future oppressive dictator in Fidel Castro.  In the section “The Revolution”, Arenas questions, “Why is it that we, the great majority of the people, and even the intellectuals, did not realize that this was the beginning of a new dictatorship, even bloodier than the previous one?”  Initially, One can contend that Castro’s policies could be considered as initially operating solely on behalf of the cuban people.  Under his government citizens had substantially more opportunities for  employment.  The illiteracy rate dropped significantly.  Healthcare was provided to the citizens.  Also, Cuba’s electrical grid was fully modernized.  Cubans received both free healthcare and free education.  All initial improvements from the clutches of Batista.  On the other hand there was an extremely deep price to pay for these adminities, a price not all citizens would be willing to pay.  Progressively cubans would concede civil rights afforded in other countries as their status as the first communist nation in the western hemisphere was confirmed.  Fidel Castro would eliminate the government election process leading him to remain in power for the next nearly sixty years.  Cubans would no longer have the right to own their own businesses.  Cubans who would dare protest the government publicly would flirt with the possibility of being at the very least brutally beaten or even possibly killed.  The free press became a propaganda tool for the government.  Castro may have started with good intentions but like so many before him he would fall to the lust of power.

So when I begin to take into consideration how Cuba’s atmosphere influenced Reinaldo Arenas body of work I can begin to take in the full gravity of his pain.  The overall tone of the feels like a man who knows he's near the end seeking resolution.  Resolution for the people of his country to be liberated from a tyrannical oppressor.  He states in the introduction of the book, the section titled, “The End”, “One day, eventually, the people will overthrow Castro, and the least they will do is bring to justice those who collaborated with the tyrant with impunity”.  He goes on to state, “The ones who promote dialogue with Castro, well aware that Castro will never give up his power peacefully and that a truce and economic assistance are what he needs to strengthen his position, are as guilty as his own henchmen who torture and murder people”.  Going further, he’s holding other more influential Cubans who live outside the country responsible as so they're outside of the reach of the dictator they should be more outspoken as to the conditions the vulnerable in Cuba are suffering, “Those who are not living in Cuba are perhaps even more to blame, because inside Cuba you exist under absolute terror, but outside you can at least maintain a modicum of political integrity. All the pretentious people who dream of appearing on TV shaking Fidel Castro’s hand and of becoming politically relevant should have more realistic dreams: they should envision the rope from which they will swing in Havana’s Central Park, because the Cuban people, being generous, will hang them when the moment of truth comes”.  The opening of the book comes to a conclusion on this thought through this statement, “The only consolation left for them will be to have avoided bloodshed.  Perhaps such an act of justice would be a good lesson for the future, because as a country Cuba has produced scoundrels, criminals, demagogues, and cowards in numbers disproportionate to its population”.  

In what I have read so far in chapters one through twelve I believe the cries for help are resoundingly clear in this compelling story of resiliency. Arenas details how during his time in Cuba the government was increasingly and gradually oppressive from one brutal dictator in Batista to another dictator in Castro.  Under both dictators, the Cuban people were persecuted for various reasons and various views deemed necessary by the government.  As stated earlier, publicly protesting the government would definitely have it’s price.  Freedom of speech should be a protected right of the people.  Although change is slow it starts out with people voicing their concerns. As government exists for service to the people, citizens should be able to speak out against its governmental institutions at the very moment they feel the government is not operating in the best interest of the people.   The function of free speech is to ensure the balance of governmental power remains in effect.  Another reason the government would use to persecute its citizens would be one's sexual orientation.  Our author, Reinaldo Arenas was a homosexual and he used his talent as a writer to protest to the government through his literature.   Knowing that the power of his literature would be able to reach around the world, Arenas would express his dissidence with the Cuban government through his literature documenting his experiences for global consumption.  This tale at the time was Arenas’ way of alerting to the world the conditions of the Cuban country and in a way is calling out for help from an oppressive dictator.   The Cuban government didn't take too well to the perceived truths revealed in Arenas’s work.  Arenas’s collection of literature protesting Cuba’s conditions along with his sexual orientation would eventually lead to his exile from the country he so dearly adored in his childhood.  

[mariefsaintfleur-blog]

Ten Interesting Haitian Novels

1. Claire of the Sea Light by Edwidge Danticat

“ Just as her father makes the wrenching decision to send her away for a chance at a better life, Claire Limyè Lanmè—Claire of the Sea Light—suddenly disappears. As the people of the Haitian seaside community of Ville Rose search for her, painful secrets, haunting memories, and startling truths are unearthed. In this stunning novel about intertwined lives, Edwidge Danticat crafts a tightly woven, breathtaking tapestry that explores the mysterious bonds we share—with the natural world and with one another.’‘ (Amazon.com)

2. Breath, Eyes, Memory by Edwidge Danticat

“At the age of twelve, Sophie Caco is sent from her impoverished village of Croix-des-Rosets to New York, to be reunited with a mother she barely remembers. There she discovers secrets that no child should ever know, and a legacy of shame that can be healed only when she returns to Haiti--to the women who first reared her. What ensues is a passionate journey through a landscape charged with the supernatural and scarred by political violence, in a novel that bears witness to the traditions, suffering, and wisdom of an entire people.” (Amazon.com)

3. The Book of Emma by Marie- Célie Agnant

“ Confined to a psychiatric hospital following the murder of her young daughter, Emma Bratte refuses to speak any language but her mother tongue. Dr. MacLeod has brought in an interpreter, Flore, to help him evaluate Emma's fitness to stand trial. "Both crazy and too lucid," an articulate and knowledgeable Emma relates her long battle against despair, through striking images of her lonely but determined and creative struggle to win the love of a mother misled by a racist society and then through tales of the suffering and resistance of some of her female forebears. These narratives, which are both epic and dramatic, and their contrasting reception by the officious psychiatrist and the sensitive Flore, produce rich layers of experience and meaning in this concisely narrated work.  Flore recognizes Emma's faithfulness to her ancestors' struggle and their wisdom, both in her desperate gesture to save her child from the cruel humiliations of prejudice and in her definitive act of rejoining her ancestors when she has effectively fulfilled her duty to pass on the memory, theirs and hers, to guide her successors, like Flore.” (Amazon.com)

4. Children of Heroes by Lyonel Trouillot

“ Their father’s favorite saying, between drinks and blows, was, “Life holds only bad surprises, and the last one will be death.” And now, Colin observes of the man sprawled under all the broken furniture, their father was definitely and forever out of surprises. Children of Heroes is the story Colin tells of what happened—and what happened before that. Testimony, confession, a child’s outpouring: this is his painfully matter-of-fact account of how he and his older sister, Mariéla, killed the man who tyrannized them and their piously pathetic mother, who is now a “blank.” As he describes their flight from the slum in Haiti to an uncertain somewhere called “far away,” Colin conjures a bleak picture of the life he and his sister are trying to leave behind. And whether these two—children only in age—are guilty or merely victims of the violence festering in their city is a question only the reader can answer. In its picture of a world in which the heroes and the destroyers—whether fathers or leaders—are often indistinguishable, and where life’s poetry and poverty are inextricably linked, this book tells a story of Haiti that is at once intimate, universal, and otherworldly.’‘ (Amazon.com)

5. Clerise of Haiti by Marie-Therese Labossiere Thomas

“ A young domestic worker devoted to her prominent urban employers in Les Cayes, Haiti, Clerise progressively renounces the traditional values of her rural background. When she later marries and opens a small business, class conflicts and divided loyalties develop amid the terror of the Duvalier regime, and she is ultimately caught in the escalation of violence. Clerise of Haiti is a story of three generations of Haitian women, and covers a thirty year span ending in the late 1970s. Full of humor and resilience, Clerise's unique perspective into the upper classes and the world of the poor explores the complexities of life in a provincial town and highlights the socioeconomic and political forces at play in Haiti.’’ (Amazon.com)

6. The Farming of Bones by Edwidge Danticat

“ It is 1937 and Amabelle Désir, a young Haitian woman living in the Dominican Republic, has built herself a life as the servant and companion of the wife of a wealthy colonel. She and Sebastien, a cane worker, are deeply in love and plan to marry. But Amabelle's  world collapses when a wave of genocidal violence, driven by Dominican dictator Rafael Trujillo, leads to the slaughter of Haitian workers. Amabelle and Sebastien are separated, and she desperately flees the tide of violence for a Haiti she barely remembers.Already acknowledged as a classic, this harrowing story of love and survival—from one of the most important voices of her generation—is an unforgettable memorial to the victims of the Parsley Massacre and a testimony to the power of human memory.’‘ (Amazon.com)

7. Haiti Noir by Various Authors

“ Each book is comprised of all-new stories, each one set in a distinct neighborhood or location within the city of the book.” (goodreads.com)

8. Untwine by Edwidge Danticat

“ Giselle Boyer and her identical twin, Isabelle, are as close as sisters can be, even as their family seems to be unraveling. Then the Boyers have a tragic encounter that will shatter everyone's world forever.Giselle wakes up in the hospital, injured and unable to speak or move. Trapped in the prison of her own body, Giselle must revisit her past in order to understand how the people closest to her -- her friends, her parents, and above all, Isabelle, her twin -- have shaped and defined her. Will she allow her love for her family and friends to lead her to recovery? Or will she remain lost in a spiral of longing and regret?” (Amazon.com)

9. The Dew Breaker by Edwidge Danticat

“ In this award-winning, bestselling work of fiction that moves between Haiti in the 1960s and New York in the present day, we meet an unusual man who is harboring a vital, dangerous secret. He is a quiet man, a good father and husband, a fixture in his Brooklyn neighborhood, a landlord and barber with a terrifying scar across his face. As the book unfolds, we enter the lives of those around him, and his secret is slowly revealed. Edwidge Danticat’s brilliant exploration of the “dew breaker”-- or torturer-- is an unforgettable story of love, remorse, and hope; of personal and political rebellions; and of the compromises we make to move beyond the most intimate brushes with history. It firmly establishes her as one of America’s most essential writers.’‘ (Amazon.com)

10. American Street by Ibi Zoboi

“ On the corner of American Street and Joy Road, Fabiola Toussaint thought she would finally find une belle vie—a good life.But after they leave Port-au-Prince, Haiti, Fabiola’s mother is detained by U.S. immigration, leaving Fabiola to navigate her loud American cousins, Chantal, Donna, and Princess; the grittiness of Detroit’s west side; a new school; and a surprising romance, all on her own.Just as she finds her footing in this strange new world, a dangerous proposition presents itself, and Fabiola soon realizes that freedom comes at a cost. Trapped at the crossroads of an impossible choice, will she pay the price for the American dream?’‘ (goodreads.com)