Arts and Literature of Cuba

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Voices from Exile T he heartache of being separated from one’s home and, often, from family and friends is well known to Cubans. Since Fidel Castro came to power in 1959, more than 1.5 million have left the island to escape the regime’s repression or seek better economic opportunities—and this in a country of only about 11 million people. In exile, Cuban writers have turned their experiences into compelling works of literature. This chapter examines three such writers. Reinaldo Arenas: Into the Night “I have realized,” Reinaldo Arenas wrote near the end of his life, “that an exile has no place anywhere . . . because the place where we started to dream, where we discovered the natural

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