The bird doesn’t cheep: testimony and castro’s cuban homophobia in ‘Arturo, la estrella más brillante’, by Reinaldo Arenas
Endika Basáñez Barrio Artículo en Revista 2020 Grupo Consolidado
Despite being exiled in New York, Cuban writer Reinaldo Arenas did not abandon the use of narrative materials linked to the experience of the revolutionary dissidence. As a matter of fact, Arturo, la estrella más brillante, written in 1971 but published in exile in 1984, becomes a story where the Cuban converts into a text the homophobic struggle based on his colleague Nelson Rodríguez’s biography who was arrested in one of the homophobic camps sponsored by the socialist state. The article, thus, examines the testimonial value of the work as well as the anti-gay imagery inherited from European capitalism biopolicies.