Document Type
Article
Journal/Book Title/Conference
Decimonónica
Volume
3
Issue
2
Publisher
Decimonónica
Publication Date
2006
First Page
45
Last Page
58
Abstract
Reinaldo Arenas’s La Loma del Ángel, published in the United States in 1987, represents one of a number of novels written by Cuban writers in exile, and yet, it is of particular importance with regard to the comparative study of the postmodern Caribbean narrative and the nineteenth-century Cuban costumbrista novel. La Loma appeared seven years after the young author left Cuba along with some 120,000 exiles that took part in the Mariel boat lift. Having lived the majority of his life under the Castro regime and finding himself imprisoned for his creative zeal, homosexuality, and ambition, the author’s life parallels many aspects of other Cuban exile writers but in particular, Cirilo Villaverde. The two authors were born in the countryside of Cuba and both writers were profoundly engaged in political and cultural changes in their respective periods of historical crisis. They suffered the trauma of prison and fled Cuba, by way of the sea, to Florida and eventually to New York. In New York, Villaverde rewrote and completed the definitive edition of Cecilia Valdés, while a century later Arenas comprised his own version of Villaverde’s masterpiece.
Recommended Citation
Manzari, H. J., "A Postmodern “Play” on a Nineteenth Century Cuban Classic: Reinaldo Arenas’s La Loma del Ángel" (2006). Decimonónica. Paper 87.
https://digitalcommons.usu.edu/decimononica/87