Table Of ContentI B E R I A N A N D L AT I N A M E R I C A N S T U D I E S
T H E A R T S , L I T E R A T U R E A N D I D E N T I T Y
W
e
This book offers a significant, original and timely contribution to the study n
d
of one of the most important and notorious Latin American authors of y
-
J
the twentieth century: Reinaldo Arenas. The text engages with the many a
y
extraordinary intersections created between Arenas’ writing, the autobio- n
e
graphical construction of the literary subject and the exilic condition. M
c
M
Through focusing on texts written on the island of Cuba and in exile, the a
h
author analyses the ways in which Arenas’ writing emblemises a complex o
n
process of identification with, and rejection of, his homeland – always an •
imagined place and which is, as the place of his origins, intrinsically related
D
to the maternal. She examines how the maternal and the motherland are
i
s
conflated and how the narrator–protagonists’ identification is always lo
c
in relation to, and dependent upon, this dominant motif. The book a
t
e
also explores the extent to which Arenas’ writing is a tortuous attempt d
to escape from this dominance and to free himself and his writing from Id
e
the ties that bind him to the mother and the motherland, and shows that n
t
Arenas suffered the exilic condition long before his move to the United it
i
e
States in 1980 as part of the Mariel exodus. s
Dislocated Identities
Wendy-Jayne McMahon is Lecturer in American Studies at the University of Exile and the Self as (M)other
East Anglia, where she teaches and researches the literatures and cultures
in the Writing of Reinaldo Arenas
of the Caribbean and Latin America, literature written in exile in the United
States and twenty-first-century American culture.
Wendy-Jayne McMahon
ISBN 978-3-0343-0223-4
www.peterlang.com Peter Lang
I B E R I A N A N D L AT I N A M E R I C A N S T U D I E S
T H E A R T S , L I T E R A T U R E A N D I D E N T I T Y
W
e
This book offers a significant, original and timely contribution to the study n
d
of one of the most important and notorious Latin American authors of y
-
J
the twentieth century: Reinaldo Arenas. The text engages with the many a
y
extraordinary intersections created between Arenas’ writing, the autobio- n
e
graphical construction of the literary subject and the exilic condition. M
c
M
Through focusing on texts written on the island of Cuba and in exile, the a
h
author analyses the ways in which Arenas’ writing emblemises a complex o
n
process of identification with, and rejection of, his homeland – always an •
imagined place and which is, as the place of his origins, intrinsically related
D
to the maternal. She examines how the maternal and the motherland are
i
s
conflated and how the narrator–protagonists’ identification is always lo
c
in relation to, and dependent upon, this dominant motif. The book a
t
e
also explores the extent to which Arenas’ writing is a tortuous attempt d
to escape from this dominance and to free himself and his writing from Id
e
the ties that bind him to the mother and the motherland, and shows that n
t
Arenas suffered the exilic condition long before his move to the United it
i
e
States in 1980 as part of the Mariel exodus. s
Dislocated Identities
Wendy-Jayne McMahon is Lecturer in American Studies at the University of Exile and the Self as (M)other
East Anglia, where she teaches and researches the literatures and cultures
in the Writing of Reinaldo Arenas
of the Caribbean and Latin America, literature written in exile in the United
States and twenty-first-century American culture.
Wendy-Jayne McMahon
www.peterlang.com Peter Lang
Dislocated Identities
Iberian and Latin American Studies:
The Arts, Literature and Identity
2
Volume
Edited by Professor Francis Lough
Department of Hispanic Studies, University of Birmingham
PEtEr Lang
Oxford • Bern • Berlin • Bruxelles • Frankfurt am Main • new York • Wien
Wendy-Jayne McMahon
Dislocated Identities
Exile and the Self as (M)other
in the Writing of reinaldo arenas
PEtEr Lang
Oxford • Bern • Berlin • Bruxelles • Frankfurt am Main • new York • Wien
Bibliographic information published by Die Deutsche Nationalbibliothek.
Die Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche National-
bibliografie; detailed bibliographic data is available on the Internet
at http://dnb.d-nb.de.
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data:
McMahon, Wendy-Jayne, 1975-
Dislocated identities : exile and the self as (m)other in the writing of Reinaldo
Arenas / Wendy-Jayne McMahon.
p. cm. -- (Iberian and Latin American studies: the arts, literature and identity ;
2)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-3-0343-0223-4 (alk. paper)
1. Arenas, Reinaldo, 1943-1990--Criticism and interpretation. 2. Exile (Punish-
ment) in literature. 3. Self in literature. 4. Identity (Psychology) in literature. I.
Title.
PQ7390.A72Z745 2012
863’.64--dc23
2012004462
Cover image: Wilfredo Lam, Mother and Child (1939), Museum of Modern Art,
New York. Image courtesy of the Museum of Modern Art, New York / Scala, Florence.
ISSN 1662-1794
ISBN 978-3-0343-0223-4
© Peter Lang AG, International Academic Publishers, Bern 2012
Hochfeldstrasse 32, CH-3012 Bern, Switzerland
[email protected], www.peterlang.com, www.peterlang.net
All rights reserved.
All parts of this publication are protected by copyright.
Any utilisation outside the strict limits of the copyright law, without the
permission of the publisher, is forbidden and liable to prosecution.
This applies in particular to reproductions, translations, microfilming,
and storage and processing in electronic retrieval systems.
Printed in Germany
Contents
Introduction
Autobiography, Rewriting and the Exilic Condition
in Reinaldo Arenas’ Life and Work 1
Chapter 1
The End as Beginning 49
Chapter 2
The Beginning as a Cycle of Ends 95
Chapter 3
Cycles of his Story 159
Chapter 4
The End as the Death of Origins 217
Conclusion
The Final End: The Final Rewrite 237
Bibliography 247
Index 259
Introduction
Autobiography, Rewriting and the Exilic Condition
in Reinaldo Arenas’ Life and Work
Someone who’s been uprooted, exiled, has no country. Our country exists
only in our memory, but we need something beyond memory if we’re to
achieve happiness. We have no homeland, so we have to invent it over
and over again.
— Reinaldo Arenas1
Leaving Cuba is a story one tells over and over, often looking for details
that reveal themselves through repetition.
— Román De La Campa2
A Portrait of the Artist as a Liberal Man
Speaking to Dennis Hopper for the spring 2001 issue of Interview maga-
zine, the Spanish actor Javier Bardem stated that he was ‘really proud’ of
the film Before Night Falls based on the autobiography of Cuban writer
Reinaldo Arenas, in which he plays the part of the author.3 He is proud,
he says, because it is a film that deals with ‘intolerance’ and is a protest
1 Perla Rozencvaig, ‘Reinaldo Arenas’s Last Interview’, trans. Alfred MacAdam, Jr,
Review 44 (Jan.–June 1991), p. 80.
2 Roman de la Campa, Cuba on My Mind (London: Verso, 2000), p. 22.
3 Before Night Falls, directed by Julian Schnabel, written by Cunningham O’Keefe,
Lázaro Gómez Carriles and Julian Schnabel, 2000.
2 Introduction
against ‘totalitarianism in any country’.4 In an interview for the same issue
of the magazine, the film’s director, Julian Schnabel, exalts the artistic,
moral and indeed political integrity of his film’s star when he described
how ‘very brave it was for [Bardem] to decide to play Reinaldo’ since it is a
‘role that so clearly defines the intolerance of Castro’. Brave, indeed, because
the actor ‘comes from a family of communists’ and, of course, Castro has
been a ‘hero for so many communists’.5 ‘I don’t know much about politics’,
Schnabel told the LA Weekly, ‘[b]ut I had to tell the story, because the guy
[Arenas] touched me and I instinctively felt something in common with
him. There’s a humanity that Reinaldo projected that made me feel like
making the movie and I tried to be true to his voice. Obviously, it’s a Latin
story – but it’s against totalitarianism in any country. It’s about tolerance.’6
In another interview the director emphasises that his film moves beyond
the political realm into one that is specifically aesthetic; ‘I am not of the
left or the right’, he informs us, ‘I am not gay or a Cuban, I simply wanted
to make a film about an artist whose life combined the more brutal aspects
of his nature as well as the more beautiful.’7
Schnabel is first and foremost a painter and his filmic production
ref lects his sensibility for this medium. The film Before Night Falls is a
succession of powerful images and moments which focus on carefully
selected ‘scenes’ loosely lifted from Arenas’ autobiography, Before Night
Falls, composed in 1990, shortly before his death, as well as elements of
4 Dennis Hopper, ‘A Creative Spirit Lights Up Before Night Falls’, Interview (Jan.–April
2001). http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1285/is_1_31/ai_68768266
(accessed 24 November 2004).
5 Dennis Hopper, ‘Before Night Falls Special! Behind the Scenes Director Special:
Julian Schnabel’, Interview (Jan.–April 2000), http://www.findarticles.com/p/
articles/mi_m1285/is_1_3/ai_68768267 (accessed 24 November 2003).
6 Doug Harvey, ‘Interview with Julian Schnabel’, LA Weekly News (20 December
2000), http://www.laweekly.com/general/features/the-artist/5166/ (accessed 24
November 2004).
7 Julian Schnabel, quoted in Fiachra Gibbons, ‘Cuban Poet Film Condemned’, Guardian
Unlimited (accessed 7 May 2001).
