| "Before Night Falls" charts Arenas' Journey from the days of his youth in the poverty stricken countrysideto the nights of pain he endured under the Castro Regime. The reader is immediately impressed at this man's determination to simply be who he is, at any cost- and those costs were very high. He lost his friends to an informer culture, his freedom to a police state simply for expressing himself- he suffered for years, and survived AIDs to write this book. "Before Night Falls" is Arenas' damning insight into the barbarity of the police state. Through him we see how easily freedoms can be taken away; that when they are, we must fight for them. He wrote even when death was closing around him, and that gives the reader hope,if not a chill that his talent brought him to that extreme.
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Plot & Themes Tone of book? - thoughtful Time/era of story - 1960's-1970's Political/social activism Yes Plotlet: Conflict: Main Character Gender - Male Profession/status: Setting Misc setting |
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