This first novel in Arenas's "secret history of Cuba"-- a quintet he called the Pentagonia--is a powerful story of growing up in a world where nightmare has become reality, and fantasy provides the only escape.

"One of the most beautiful novels ever written about childhood, adolescence, and life in Cuba." --Carlos Fuentes

Reinaldo Arenas was born in Cuba in 1943. In 1980, he was one of 120,000 Cubans who arrived in the U.S. on the Mariel boatlift. Arenas settled in New York where he lived until his death, from AIDS, ten years later.