Before night falls tells the story of arenass life growing up in a small town in cuba discovering his homosexuality and embracing his gay identity being persecuted at the hands of fidel castros virulently homophobic communist government escaping to america on the mariel boatlift and eventually contracting aids. Before night falls is arenas autobiography beginning with early childhood he describes how cuba in the 1940s was a harsh place which only deteriorated after castro came to power in 1959 arenas is raised by his single mother and her sister although he meets his dad unknowingly once as a child he spent most of his time unsupervised. Cuban writer reinaldo arenas describes his poverty stricken childhood in rural his adolescence as a rebel fighting for fidel castro and his life in revolutionary cuba as a homosexual very quickly the castro government suppressed his writing and persecuted him for his homosexuality until he was finally imprisoned. A cuban writer reinaldo arenas writes about his life under the persecution from fidel castros dictatorship in before night falls arenas describes how he made the most out of life in a repressive state and how his contemporaries lived in a marginal society with the aid of dreams and magical realism