16/150

Antes Que Anochezca (Before Night Falls, in English) - Reinaldo Arenas

This is a book that I read for my university module ‘Culture and Identity in Latin America’ so I won’t go into great detail about it.

It is an autobiographical novel written by Reinaldo Arenas who was a homosexual man living in Cuba under Fidel Castro. He was greatly persecuted and ended up fleeing to America where he sadly committed suicide in 1990 at the age of only 47. It is astounding to read first-hand what horrors he went through in such recent times and what life in Cuba was really like then. Another surprising part of the book is how sexually explicit it is, it is not a book for the faint hearted in that respect. Whilst shocking it is written in such a beautiful way by Arenas that you can really appreciate the literary genius behind it. The book shows us snippets from throughout his life, from his childhood in the countryside with his mum, grandma and many aunts to his final freedom and happiness in New York before he became ill with AIDS.

As well as this biography put together and finished just before his death, Arenas has also written a number of other novels, all of which are said to have some sort of autobiographic aspect to them. I’d really love to read some of these as his life and writing has really captured me just through reading this book and I’d really recommend it to anyone who was interested in this area of study and interest. There is also a great film adaption of the book starring Javier Bardem which is well worth a watch if anybody does happen to be interested but the book seems a bit hard going.

The book is available in the original Spanish and English to get from amazon and I ended up reading both…does that mean I can count it as two books? I’m kidding. I won’t. Anyway, to wrap this up, I’m going to give this book 4 and a half stars. It’s definitely not something I would have picked for myself had I not had to study it but it really did interest me in the end and I (shock horror) actually enjoyed revising it for me exam!

Char x

12/150

"The message was short. I want to see you now. I want you to come to me, it doesn't matter how late it is, and tell me exactly what you want from me.'

At the dawn of the twenty-first century Adam Kellas finds himself hurled on a journey between continents and cultures. In his quest from the war-torn mountains of Afghanistan to the elegant dinner tables of north London and then the marshlands of the American South, only the memory of the beautiful, elusive Astrid offers the possibility of hope."

We Are Now Beginning Our Descent is a novel that I was obliged to study on my Contemporary Writing module at university. It took a while for me to get into this book, as the context and themes of the novel are all very current to the news everyday, and I tend to read books as an escapist hobby rather than a depiction of the reality of which I'm currently living in. When one puts that aside, the novel is rather good.

The text has thematics such as war, long distance love, obsession and trauma. Our protagonist Adam Kellas is a brilliant character because he develops along with the novel. Due to the clever opening of the novel, the reader is immediately thrown into the centre of a young afghan person's life, I didn't realise that this wasn't actually happening but was the musings of Adam. We discover he is a reporter out in the Middle East who is also aspiring to write a novel. Due to the opening, the reader is immediatly put into the mind set that is needed to really get behind the meaning of this text.

I believe that Meek is initially making us realise and think about the effects of seeing the ongoings in the middle east from an outsiders point of view, but due to his friend from the country we are also given the perspective of a person who is actually from the Middle East. By bringing Astrid into the novel, Meek is not only creating a sort of 'relief' character for the reader, but once again a different dimention, as Astrid's character also shows us how even though there are this incredibly horrendous things occurring abroad, she also has her own problems.

Overall this book was a good read, but I found it rather difficult to keep flicking between the various settings of the UK, the Middle East and the USA. I also question the realistic quality of Adam's decision to just jump on a plane one night and go to Astrid. Yes, I realise novels are supposed to be escapist, but one questions that idea in this scenario due to the rest of the novel seeming to be so realistic and accurate.

For me, this is about a 3 star read - Sophie.

BOOK 2/150

Autobiografia de un Esclavo by Juan Francisco Manzano

I won't go into detail about this, as it was read for my Culture and Identity in Latin America module at uni. I read it in Spanish, but due to the fact that it was written by someone who themselves how to write Spanish, it is an absolute nightmare to read, no punctuation and basically written phonetically. It is very interesting though and of great historical importance. It was the first and possibly the only account of slavery written in Spanish. It was written by a Cuban slave who had also two poetry books published previously. He lived a very unusual life, and had a variety of different mistresses. When reading this and the English version, however, it is important to remember that it was greatly edited from the original by the sponsors and translators who made the publication possible.