"Cuba will be free. I already am."

A poignant memoir by Reinaldo Arenas, a gay writer and poet, written whilst dying of AIDs in exile after finally escaping Cuba and the many degradations he endured under the Castro regime. It thoroughly destroys any romantic notions one might have of Castro's communist dictatorship, and stands testament to the awful impact authoritarian regimes have on every facet of society. Under Castro, families are torn apart, friends turned against each other, a vibrant culture is drained of its vitality, artists are made to renounce their own work and create propaganda, 'undesirables' shipped off to concentration camps, worked to the bone and left to die.

And yet Before Night Falls is also a memoir of defiance and survival. Despite numerous betrayals, imprisonment, ostracisation and degradation, Arenas kept writing, risking everything to hide novel manuscripts under roof tiles, and even rewriting A Farewell to the Sea numerous times after various copies were found by the authorities and destroyed.

Although his wings were clipped under Castro, and his life tragically cut short when he finally found 'freedom', Arenas still managed to play an important part in international LGBT rights and the struggle against authoritarianism. His story deserves to be heard.