Before Night Falls

Author: Reinaldo Arenas
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 0143134841
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 338

Book Description
The acclaimed memoir of homosexual Cuban author Reinaldo Arenas chronicling his tumultuous yet luminary life, from his impoverished upbringing in Cuba to his imprisonment at the hands of a Communist regime. A Penguin Vitae Edition The astonishing memoir by visionary Cuban writer Reinaldo Arenas "is a book above all about being free," said The New York Review of Books--sexually, politically, artistically. Arenas recounts a stunning odyssey from his poverty-stricken childhood in rural Cuba and his adolescence as a rebel fighting for Castro, through his supression as a writer, imprisonment as a homosexual, his flight from Cuba via the Mariel boat lift, and his subsequent life and the events leading to his death in New York. In what The Miami Herald calls his "deathbed ode to eroticism," Arenas breaks through the code of secrecy and silence that protects the privileged in a state where homosexuality is a political crime. Recorded in simple, straightforward prose, this is the true story of the Kafkaesque life and world re-created in the author's acclaimed novels. Penguin Classics launches a new hardcover series with five American classics that are relevant and timeless in their power, and part of a dynamic and diverse landscape of classic fiction and nonfiction from almost seventy-five years of classics publishing. Penguin Vitae provides readers with beautifully designed classics that have shaped the course of their lives, and welcomes new readers to discover these literary gifts of personal inspiration, intellectual engagement, and creative originality.

Before Night Falls

Author: Reinaldo Arenas
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781781258682
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 320

Book Description
Reinaldo Arenas was born to a poverty-stricken family in rural Cuba. By the time of his death in New York four decades later, he had become one of Cuba's most important poets, an outspoken critic of Castro's regime and one of the leading gay voices of the twentieth century. In Before Night Falls, Arenas tells of his odyssey from young rebel fighting for the Revolution, through his suppression as a writer, his disillusionment with Castro, his imprisonment and torture, to his eventual exile from Cuba to New York, where in 1987 he was diagnosed with AIDS. He committed suicide in 1990, ending a life of constant struggle against repression. In a farewell note, Arenas wrote: Due to my delicate state of health and to the terrible depression that causes me not to be able to continue writing and struggling for the freedom of Cuba, I am ending my life ... I do not want to convey to you a message of defeat, but of continued struggle and hope.Cuba will be free. I already am.(signed)Reinaldo Arenas

When True Night Falls

Author: C.S. Friedman
Publisher: Astra Publishing House
ISBN: 110146433X
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 585

Book Description
Blending science fiction and fantasy, the second book of the Coldfire Trilogy continues a dark tale of an alien world where nightmares are made manifest. Two men, absolute enemies, must unite to conquer an evil greater than anything their world has ever known. One is a warrior priest ready to sacrifice anything and everything for the cause of humanity's progress; the other, a sorcerer who has survived for countless centuries by a total submission to evil. In their joint quest, both will be irrevocably changed. When True Night Falls is the sequel to C. S. Friedman's acclaimed Black Sun Rising.

Singing from the Well

Author: Reinaldo Arenas
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 014009444X
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 241

Book Description
His mother talks piously of the heaven that awaits the good, and disciplines him with an ox prod. His grandmother burns his precious crosses for kindling. His cousins meet to plot their grandfather's death. Yet in the hills surrounding his home, another reality exists, a place where his mother wears flowers in her hair, and his cousin Celestino, a poet who inscribes verse on the trunks of trees, understands his visions. The first novel in Reinaldo Arenas's "secret history of Cuba," a quintet he called the Pentagonia, Singing from the Well is by turns explosively crude and breathtakingly lyrical. In the end, it is a stunning depiction of a childhood besieged by horror--and a moving defense of liberty and the imagination in a world of barbarity, persecution, and ignorance.

Night Falls Fast

Author: Kay Redfield Jamison
Publisher: Vintage
ISBN: 0307779890
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 449

Book Description
Critical reading for parents, educators, and anyone wanting to understand the tragic epidemic of suicide—”a powerful book [that] will change people's lives—and, doubtless, save a few" (Newsday). The first major book in a quarter century on suicide—and its terrible pull on the young in particular—Night Falls Fast is tragically timely: suicide has become one of the most common killers of Americans between the ages of fifteen and forty-five. From the author of the best-selling memoir, An Unquiet Mind—and an internationally acknowledged authority on depression—Dr. Jamison has also known suicide firsthand: after years of struggling with manic-depression, she tried at age twenty-eight to kill herself. Weaving together a historical and scientific exploration of the subject with personal essays on individual suicides, she brings not only her remarkable compassion and literary skill but also all of her knowledge and research to bear on this devastating problem. This is a book that helps us to understand the suicidal mind, to recognize and come to the aid of those at risk, and to comprehend the profound effects on those left behind.

As Night Falls

Author: Avner Wishnitzer
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1108934390
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 391

Book Description
In a world that is constantly awake, illuminated and exposed, there is much to gain from looking into the darkness of times past. This fascinating and vivid picture of nocturnal life in Middle Eastern cities shows that the night in the eighteenth-century Ottoman Empire created unique conditions for economic, criminal, political, devotional and leisurely pursuits that were hardly possible during the day. Offering the possibility of livelihood and brotherhood, pleasure and refuge; the darkness allowed confiding, hiding and conspiring - activities which had far-reaching consequences on Ottoman state and society in the early modern period. Instead of dismissing the night as merely a dark corridor between days, As Night Falls demonstrates how fundamental these nocturnal hours have been in shaping the major social, cultural and political processes in the early modern Middle East.

The Doorman

Author: Reinaldo Arenas
Publisher: Grove Press
ISBN: 9780802134059
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 214

Book Description
Arenas's first work set in the United States breaks new ground with the story of a young Cuban refugee who becomes a doorman at a luxury apartment building. Oddly alienated from the tenants, he is seduced by their pets, who are determined to revolt against humans and human society.

Night Falls Darkly

Author: Kim Lenox
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 9780451225375
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 340

Book Description
Archer, a member of the immortal Shadow Guard, arrives in London to eliminate Jack the Ripper, but finds himself distracted from his mission by his beautiful young ward, Miss Elena Whitney, who needs his help in remembering her past--and who just might be the Ripper's next victim. Original.

When Night Falls

Author: Linda Anderson
Publisher: Xlibris Corporation
ISBN: 1514424819
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 371

Book Description
The drowning death of her young daughter and the bitter divorce that followed drove ex-prosecutor Lannie Sullivan into a reclusive existence at her secluded mountain cabin. Now, after two years of isolation, Lannies finally emerging from her fragile bubblelosing herself in volunteer work at a local summer-stock theatre and in the embrace of her neighbour, rugged timber baron Drum Rutledge. But Lannies new life is in deadly danger. Not only is Drum haunted by secrets that could shatter both their lives, but less than a days journey away, a vicious rapist has been released from jail. Jeb Bassert has sworn vengeance on the woman he holds responsible for sending him to prison for nine bitter yearsLannie. In a thriller as chilling and dark as a moonless midnight, Linda Anderson delivers a shattering tale of murder, deception, and redemptive love.

Prayer as Night Falls

Author: Kenneth Peterson
Publisher: Paraclete Press
ISBN: 1612614906
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 211

Book Description
This beautiful book allows you to experience and participate in the last of the daily cycle of fixed-hour prayer: Compline. Kenneth Peterson has sung Compline at St. Mark’s Episcopal Cathedral in Seattle since the mid-1960s, and tells the story of the history and themes of the office, woven together with reflections from his own spiritual journey. Links are included to musical selections that illuminate the book’s chapters. A comprehensive look at this ever-popular contemplative prayer service at the end of the day.