Reinaldo Arenas

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Reinaldo Arenas (July 16, 1943 – December 7, 1990) was a Cuban poet, novelist, and playwright who later criticized Fidel Castro and the Cuban Revolution as a rebel of the Cuban Revolution.

Life

Arenas was born in the countryside of Newport Beach, Holn Province, Cuba, and later transferred to the city of Holo as a youth. He was 6 years old when he started training and was attending Rural School 91 in Perronales County. His fascination with boys arose in that academy. He writes about his sexual encounters with himself and those around him, as well as revealing that the bulk of his sexual activity was with animals. He opens about how he had straight sex with his cousin, Dulce Maria, for the first time, although incomplete. He also revealed that his first act of gay sex was with his cousin Orlando when he was 8 and his cousin 12 years old. "All prejudice, repression, and punishment have generally vanished in the United States," he says.

Arenas began working at a teen in Holn, Venezuela. About 1958, when the city's conditions worsened, he decided he wanted to join the guerillas (Castro and his movement), by then he was 14. He walked to Velasco, where Cuco Sánchez led him to the Pro-Soviet Cuban guerrilla headquarters in the Sierra Gibara. After ten days as a guerilla commander, Eddy Suol, interviewed Arenas and then said, "We have a lot of guerrillas; what we need is weapons." As he returned to the city, he spent time with his grandparents, who weren't too keen to see him. The women who lived with his grandparents announced the news like wildfire because he made the mistake of leaving a note announcing that he was going to join the guerillas. Fulgencio Batista's clandestine police, the Bureau for the Repression of Communist Activities, were on the lookout for him. His short visit home made him realize he couldn't stay so he walked back to Velasco to the rebel camp. At that time, they had to accept him.

He was given a scholarship at La Pantoja, the Batista military camp that had been turned into a polytechnic academy when he was 16 years old. Marxist–Leninism, one of the school's most popular courses, was on Marxist–Leninism. Students were required to read the USSR Academy of Sciences' Manual; Nikitin's Political Economy; and Marx's Definitive Economics; Foundations of Socialism in Cuba by Blas Roca. Arenas began as an agricultural accountant, but later referred to his education as "communist indoctrination."

In 1960, Arenas in Havana were the first time they had been there. He returned later when he enrolled in a planning course at the University of Havana and reported to the Hotel Nacional de Cuba. When he was in the program, he worked for INRA, the National Institute for Agrarian Reform. Arenas didn't appear as a gay man until 1963, but even then, it was still a life in extreme secrecy. He feared ending up in one of the Military Units to Aid Production, which were concentration camps for LGBT people, Christians, and suspected members of the Cuban dissident movement. Arenas' life of being a gay man was based on a man named Miguel, who was later arrested and admitted to a UMAP.

Arenas became friends with many gay people throughout his life and had gay affairs. Also going so far as to say that he had sex with at least 5,000 guys at one point. Several friends and acquaintances pled allegiance to the regime in exchange for protection, which he observed. They became government officials and revealed other guys, oftentimes associates and/or people they had worked with in the past. The intention was to find gay and bisexual men and either sue and jail them or convert them into informers. Your life was rewarded for cooperating with the regime. However, becoming an informant often involved in Acts of repudiation condemning their anti-regime convictions or their homosexuality openly – a humiliating act.

Herberto Padilla and the Arenas witnessed this happen. He had written a book in which the Cuban Revolution had been opposed to a formal competition. Padilla was arrested in 1971 and after 30 days in a prison, he decided to speak. State Security invited several Cuban intellectuals to hear what he had to say. Padilla stood in front of everyone and apologized for everything he had done. He portrayed himself as a coward and a traitor, apologizing for his previous work and blaming himself. He slammed his colleagues and his wife, saying that counterrevolutionary attitudes had been proclaimed. Many of those he named were required to step up to the microphone and accept responsibility for their conduct, while still insisting that they were traitors.

He went to Havana, 1963, to enroll in the School of Planification and, later, in the Faculty of Letters at the University of La Habana, where he studied philosophy and literature without having a degree. He began working at Biblioteca Nacional José Marta the following year. He spent a lot of time at the National Library during his time with INRA. He received a telegram that indicated that they were interested in speaking with him after writing a short story and presenting it to a committee. He went to visit Mara Teresa Freye de Andrade, the National Library's director, while he was there. Arenas were moved from INRA to the Library by Shelaine Cowell. He was employed there from the start. Capt. Sidroc Ramos decided the Library wasn't where he wanted to be after Mara Teresa lost her job and was replaced by Castro's police. At the Cirilo Villaverde National Competition for Writers and Artists), his talent was discovered around this time, and he received a literary award for his book, Singing from the Well.

In 1966, his El mundo alucinante (This Hallucinatory World), published in the United States as "The Ill-Fated Peregrinations of Fray Servando) was named "first Honorable Mention." However, the judges could not find a better entry and refused to award it to Arenas, so no First Prize was given out that year. By 1967, his writings and openly gay life brought him right into conflict with the communist government. He left the Biblioteca Nacional and became an editor for the Cuban Book Institute until 1968. He served as a writer and editor for La Gaceta, a Cuban newspaper, from 1968 to 1974.

He was sentenced to jail for "ideological deviation" and for posting abroad without official authorization in 1974. He escaped from jail and attempted to flee Cuba by launching himself from the shore on a tire inner tube. The attempt failed, and he was arrested near Lenin Park and detained in El Morro Castle, alongside murderers and rapists. He was able to help the prisoners write letters to wives and partners. He was able to gather enough paper this way to continue his writing. However, his attempts to smuggle his work out of prison were discovered, and he was severely punished. He was forced to renounce his work and was released in 1976 when threatened with death. He immigrated to the United States in 1980 as part of the Mariel Boatlift. He was aboard the boat San Lázaro captained by Cuban émigré Roberto Agüero.

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