Forms of Dissidence: "Celestino antes del alba" and "El mundo alucinante" by Reinaldo Arenas

Joey Whitfield

doi:10.18573/newreadings.111

Abstract

This article analyses the formal properties of Reinaldo Arenas’s first two novels Celestino antes del alba (1967) and El mundo alucinante (1968) in light of his statement that all of his work is related to the revolution whether he wanted it to be or not. Drawing on other critics who have examined the parallels between Arenas’s persecution for his sexuality and his persecution as a writer, I look at how the formal innovations of these novels depend on the revolution. Unlike his subsequent novels, Celestino and El mundo were written before Arenas became a pariah and were intended for publication in Cuba. I argue therefore that although their engagement with the revolution is oppositional, Arenas is still able to ethically derive certain formal pleasures within this antagonistic power relation.

Highlights

This article analyses the formal properties of Reinaldo Arenas’s first two novels Celestino antes del alba (1967) and El mundo alucinante (1968) in light of his statement that all of his work is related to the Cuban Revolution, whether he wanted it to be or not
In “El socialismo y el hombre en Cuba”, Ernesto “Che” Guevara complained, that writers from before the revolution were inevitably tainted by the “pecado original” [original sin] of not being revolutionary, as they had been formed in a non-revolutionary society, and he looked forward to the day when there would be a new generation who had evolved in properly revolutionary conditions, “[y]a vendrán los revolucionarios que entonen el canto
There was a time when it seemed that Reinaldo Arenas (1943–90) was to be such a writer

Summary

Introduction

This article analyses the formal properties of Reinaldo Arenas’s first two novels Celestino antes del alba (1967) and El mundo alucinante (1968) in light of his statement that all of his work is related to the Cuban Revolution, whether he wanted it to be or not. In Celestino antes del alba dissidence and protest against the dominant revolutionary ideology are most clearly found in the form of the novel, the content of which appears, superficially, to tow the party line.

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