WRITER

Reinaldo Arenas

1943 - 1990

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Reinaldo Arenas (July 16, 1943 – December 7, 1990) was a Cuban poet, novelist, and playwright known as a vocal critic of Fidel Castro, the Cuban Revolution, and the Cuban government. Read more on Wikipedia

Since 2007, the English Wikipedia page of Reinaldo Arenas has received more than 444,309 page views. His biography is available in 33 different languages on Wikipedia. Reinaldo Arenas is the 1,202nd most popular writer (up from 1,329th in 2019), the 80th most popular biography from Brazil (down from 23rd in 2019) and the 5th most popular Brazilian Writer.

Memorability Metrics

  • 440k

    Page Views (PV)

  • 60.40

    Historical Popularity Index (HPI)

  • 33

    Languages Editions (L)

  • 6.63

    Effective Languages (L*)

  • 2.49

    Coefficient of Variation (CV)

Notable Works

Old Rosa
Fiction, Gay men, Mothers and sons
**From Amazon.com:** A terrifying and beautiful novel, Old Rosa is composed of two stories that converge on a single charged point in the lives of a Cuban mother and son. In the first, the mother finds her son in bed with another boy; in the second, the son is imprisoned in one of Castro’s camps for homosexuals.
1989
Antes que anochezca
AIDS (disease) -- patients, exiles, Homosexuels masculins
The shocking memoir by visionary Cuban writer Reinaldo Arenas "is a book above all about being free," said The New York Review of Books--sexually, politically, artistically. Arenas recounts a stunning odyssey from his poverty-stricken childhood in rural Cuba and his adolescence as a rebel fighting for Castro, through his suppression as a writer, imprisonment as a homosexual, his flight from Cuba via the Mariel boat lift, and his subsequent life and the events leading to his death in New York. In what The Miami Herald calls his "deathbed ode to eroticism," Arenas breaks through the code of secrecy and silence that protects the privileged in a state where homosexuality is a political crime. Recorded in simple, straightforward prose, this is the true story of the Kafkaesque life and world re-created in the author's acclaimed novels.
1992
1992
Celestino antes del alba
Gays' writings, Latin American, Gay authors, Fiction
1967
El mundo alucinante
Dominicans, Fiction, Historians
1969
Portero
Apartment houses, Cubans, Fiction
1991
Portero
Apartment houses, Cubans, Fiction
1991
El mundo alucinante
Dominicans, Fiction, Historians
1969
Antes que anochezca
AIDS (disease) -- patients, exiles, Homosexuels masculins
The shocking memoir by visionary Cuban writer Reinaldo Arenas "is a book above all about being free," said The New York Review of Books--sexually, politically, artistically. Arenas recounts a stunning odyssey from his poverty-stricken childhood in rural Cuba and his adolescence as a rebel fighting for Castro, through his suppression as a writer, imprisonment as a homosexual, his flight from Cuba via the Mariel boat lift, and his subsequent life and the events leading to his death in New York. In what The Miami Herald calls his "deathbed ode to eroticism," Arenas breaks through the code of secrecy and silence that protects the privileged in a state where homosexuality is a political crime. Recorded in simple, straightforward prose, this is the true story of the Kafkaesque life and world re-created in the author's acclaimed novels.
1992
Old Rosa
Fiction, Gay men, Mothers and sons
**From Amazon.com:** A terrifying and beautiful novel, Old Rosa is composed of two stories that converge on a single charged point in the lives of a Cuban mother and son. In the first, the mother finds her son in bed with another boy; in the second, the son is imprisoned in one of Castro’s camps for homosexuals.
1989
Otra vez el mar
Fiction, Fiction, gay, Cuba, fiction
Twice confiscated by Cuban authorities and rewritten from memory, this litany of despair--the story of life in totalitarian Cuba--is told through the voice of a wife (who remains nameless), then through that of her husband, Hector, a disenchanted revolutionary and poet. Hector, his wife and baby vacation for six days at a small seaside cabin. There, in feverish lyrical outbursts, they each lament the loss of the freedom they had barely begun to know in early Castro years, and with its passing the loss of everything else--enthusiasm, rebelliousness and hope. Nothing except terror remains, and as it grows, Hector and his wife's relationship becomes intolerable. Under the domestic idle chatter lie their complete solitudes, a vestige of wilted love, her disgust at the messier aspects of child care, his silent fury and homosexual desire.--From publisher description.
1982
Celestino antes del alba
Gays' writings, Latin American, Gay authors, Fiction
1967

Among WRITERS

Among writers, Reinaldo Arenas ranks 1,202 out of 7,302. Before him are Subramania Bharati, Max Nordau, Pierre de Marivaux, Aristophanes of Byzantium, Dan Simmons, and Alexander Kielland. After him are Ibn Khallikan, Roger Caillois, Aleksey Konstantinovich Tolstoy, Odoric of Pordenone, Ida Tarbell, and Theodor Storm.

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Contemporaries

Among people born in 1943, Reinaldo Arenas ranks 99. Before him are Paul Van Himst, George Benson, Ken Thompson, Max Wright, Oskar Lafontaine, and Ri Chun-hee. After him are Jacques Laffite, Miguel Rodríguez Orejuela, Ulay, Mustafa Dzhemilev, Thomas J. Sargent, and Finn E. Kydland. Among people deceased in 1990, Reinaldo Arenas ranks 45. Before him are Rex Harrison, Princess Sophie of Hohenberg, Vasili Kuznetsov, Ugo Tognazzi, Capucine, and Ivan Serov. After him are Yiannis Ritsos, Angelo Schiavio, Alexander Pechersky, Art Blakey, Taiichi Ohno, and Jill Ireland.

Others Born in 1943

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Others Deceased in 1990

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In Brazil

Among people born in Brazil, Reinaldo Arenas ranks 80 out of 2,236. Before him are Hélder Câmara (1909), Vicente Feola (1909), Zumbi (1655), Ernesto Geisel (1907), Dida (1973), and Fernanda Montenegro (1929). After him are Chico Buarque (1944), Leonardo Boff (1938), Tancredo Neves (1910), Marcelo (1988), Amarildo Tavares da Silveira (1939), and Deco (1977).

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Among WRITERS In Brazil

Among writers born in Brazil, Reinaldo Arenas ranks 5. Before him are Paulo Coelho (1947), Jorge Amado (1912), Vinicius de Moraes (1913), and Machado de Assis (1839). After him are Chico Xavier (1910), Mário de Andrade (1893), José Mauro de Vasconcelos (1920), Augusto Boal (1931), Osvaldo Moles (1913), Carlos Marighella (1911), and Carlos Drummond de Andrade (1902).

Brazilian born Writers

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