Reinaldo Arenas, Celestino antes del alba [Singing from the well]

Gabriel Arce Riocabo (CUNY Graduate Center)

Ed. by Anna Forné, Gothenburg University
The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 4.1.3: Hispanic Writing and Culture of Central America and the Caribbean.
Vol. editors: Ben Bollig (University of Oxford), Ceire Broderick (University College Cork), Nuala Finnegan (University College Cork), Anna Forné (Gothenburg University), Cara Levey (University College Cork), Lori Oxford (Western Carolina University), Ailsa Peate (University of Westminster)

Dates

First circulation or publication Jul 1943 - Dec 1990

Places

Cuba (Country of Origin)

Genres and Modes

Novel

Resources

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Reinaldo Arenas’ debut breakthrough

Celestino antes del alba

(1965, 1967) introduces readers to the island’s deepest countryside as a place of unbearable hardship and unbridled creativity. Completed in 1965, when the author was only 22, the novel received “First Mention” in the inaugural UNEAC [the revolutionary Cuban writers union] prize. The later publication date reflects the controversy it elicited. A printing of just 2000 copies and a single edition would prove the only book Arenas ever published in Cuba.

Celestino prefigures and encompasses the entire oeuvre of perhaps the most well-known literary dissident of the Cuban Revolution. It narrates conditions of objective poverty and solitude, subjectively filled with imaginative plenitude. This superimposition is the fundamental

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3083 words

Citation: Arce Riocabo, Gabriel. "Celestino antes del alba". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 02 April 2024 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=41308, accessed 28 April 2024.]

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