Before Night Falls

Content Warning: The source text contains descriptions of anti-gay bigotry, death by suicide, and political violence.

Following the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968, Castro asks the Soviet Union to protect Cuba from US invasion. Arenas and his writer friends realize there is no longer a chance that Cuba will break with the Soviet Union and democratize. Czechoslovakia is important to Arenas and his friends: They often held readings and watched anti-communist Czech movies produced during the Prague Spring at the Czechoslovak Cultural Affairs building in Havana. Following the Soviet invasion, the Czechoslovak Cultural Affairs building no longer affords such freedom. Arenas and his friends organize a protest of the invasion in front of the Czechoslovak embassy; many young people attend to condemn Soviet imperialism. The police attack the march and arrest protestors. Arenas and his friends escape.

A period of “Super-Stalinism” begins in Cuba after Castro’s declaration of allegiance to the Soviet Union. UNEAC begins forcing writers to participate in agricultural work. However, through the end of the ‘60s the UNEAC continues organizing literary lectures, sometimes by controversial writers. The poet Herberto Padilla, whose work is largely censored, reads from his new book of poems at UNEAC; those in attendance record his poems in shorthand, knowing that the government will forbid their publication.