Recent Books

Before Night Falls

Reinaldo Arenas, translated from Spanish by Byun Sun-hee; Erum: 460 pp., 13,500 won

Writer Reinaldo Arenas, Cuban homosexual novelist and poet, was initially sympathetic with Fidel Castro's revolution. But he became a dissident when the machismo regime oppressed artists and homosexuals. He fled to the United States in 1980, where he suffered from poverty and AIDS. He eventually killed himself in New York in 1990.

The book is a powerful memoir _ surprisingly personal and thoroughly intimate autobiography as well as a political account. It vividly depicts the writer's pursuit of graphic sexual adventures as well as gruesome experiences in Cuban prison, where Arenas was imprisoned for writing dissident novels and publishing them overseas.

To those who still find an air of romanticism in Castro, his revolution and socialist Cuba, the book will offer a chilling disillusionment. The writer's suffering in Cuba and bitter accusations against ``leftists'' intellectuals who sympathize with the Castro regime has arguments that also rings relevant with debate concerning the attitude toward North Korean regime here.

Director Julian Schnabel turned this book into film in 2000, featuring Javier Bardem and Johnny Depp.