Biography: general Books

"An unforgettable portrait of a woman who became one of the most notorious figures of her day and whose scandalous story sheds fascinating light not only on her own tumultuous time but ours as well." - Harold Schechter, author of Hell's Princess: The Mystery of Belle Guinness, Butcher of MenSex, corruption, and power: the rise and fall of the Red Widow of ParisParis, 1889: Margeurite Steinheil is a woman with ambition. But having been born into a middle-class family and trapped in a marriage to a failed artist twenty years her senior, she knows her options are limited.Determined to fashion herself into a new woman, Meg orchestrates a scandalous plan with her most powerful resource: her body. Amid the dazzling glamor, art, and romance of bourgeois Paris, she takes elite men as her lovers, charming her way into the good graces of the rich and powerful. Her ambitions, though, go far beyond becoming the most desirable woman in Paris; at her core, she is a woman determined to conquer French high society. But the game she plays is a perilous one: navigating misogynistic double-standards, public scrutiny, and political intrigue, she is soon vaulted into infamy in the most dangerous way possible.A real-life femme fatale, Meg influences government positions and resorts to blackmail-and maybe even poisoning-to get her way. Leaving a trail of death and disaster in her wake, she earns the name the "Red Widow" for mysteriously surviving a home invasion that leaves both her husband and mother dead. With the police baffled and the public enraged, Meg breaks every rule in the bourgeois handbook and becomes the most notorious woman in Paris.An unforgettable true account of sex, scandal, and murder, The Red Widow is the story of a woman determined to rise-at any cost.

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Book SynopsisIn more than five decades as a reporter, editor and publisher, Peter Osnos has had an especially good view of momentous events and relationships with some of the most influential personalities of our time.As a young journalist for I.F. Stone''s Weekly, one of the leading publications of the turbulent 1960s and in 18 years at The Washington Post , he covered the war in Vietnam and Cambodia, the Soviet Union at the height of Kremlin power, Washington D.C. as National Editor, "Swinging London" in the 60s and Thatcher''s Britain in the 1980s.At Random House and the company he founded, PublicAffairs, he was responsible for books by four presidents -Carter, Clinton, Obama and Trump; celebrated Washington figures including Robert McNamara, House Speaker Tip O''Neill and Vernon Jordan, first ladies Rosalynn Carter and Nancy Reagan, the billionaire George Soros, basketball superstars Kareem Abdul Jabbar and Magic Johnson, legendary spies, political dissidents and the writers, Molly Ivins and Peggy Noonan, among many others.In this unusually wide-ranging memoir, Osnos uses a reporter''s skills to portray historic events and encounters beginning with his parents'' extraordinary World War II experiences escaping Europe to India, where he was born, to the present day. He shares unique portraits of the famous people he worked with and an insider''s perspective of the news and publishing businesses. As he charts the evolution of his career and recent history, he also explores the influence and impact of family, character, curiosity, luck, resilience, a well-pressed suit and some unexpected wrinkles.Also featuring a "virtual attic" of photographs, documents and video at anespeciallygoodview.com.

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Book SynopsisFor David and Wilma Finlay, the standard farming industry practice of separating newly born dairy calves from their mother was becoming a problem.The sound of cows bawling and questions from visitors to their farm, plus their own growing alarm about climate change and the environment, prompted them to question everything the farming experts insisted must be done.Together, they embarked on a radical twenty-five year transformation, and the biggest change of all? Keeping the dairy cows and their calves together.A Dairy Story is the full, no holds barred story of their journey from conventional dairy farming to an organic, 100% pasture, regenerative, cow-with-calf dairy that? s now at the forefront of a global movement to transform an industry.Deeply personal and searingly honest, A Dairy Story is the story of a marriage, a farm, a business, and a fierce determination to change things for the better.Published by Finlay? s Farm, distributed by 5m Books.

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Book SynopsisAlan Dicks' football career spanned the second half of the 20th century. During those fifty years the game fundamentally changed and Dicksy was there, playing his part, when history was made. In Chelsea's first ever League title win in 1955. Double promotion glory alongside Jimmy Hill at Coventry City in the 1960s. Boss at Bristol City for thirteen extraordinary years until 1980. And then managing teams around the world. At Ashton Gate, he built a side on a shoestring budget and an indestructible spirit, becoming a national figure. A living legend to Robins' fans, taking the club up to the top flight after a sixty-five-year wait, it's part of an amazing football tale of a time when loyalty meant more than money. Football has waited over thirty years to hear his story. Finally, here it is.

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Book SynopsisSince his surprise appointment in March 2013, Pope Francis has emerged as the most talked-about and most revolutionary pope in living memory. He has become a subject of fascination, conversation, and headlines not only to the 1.2 billion Catholics in the world, but to virtually everyone. This biography of Pope Francis describes how this revolutionary thinker became who he is, and how he will use the power of his position to challenge and redirect one of the world's most formidable religions.Drawing on extensive interviews in Argentina and other countries and now featuring an updated epilogue, The Great Reformer traces the roots of his papacy in Francis's childhood in Buenos Aires, in his Jesuit training, and in the dramatic events during the Perón era and the military government in Argentina in the 1970s. It shows how these experiences have shaped his beliefs, and with his commitment to the discernment of God's will, enabled him to challenge and redirect the Church.Pope Francis was elected in the midst of one of the biggest crises in the Church in modern times. This is the story of a true radical who is transforming the Church by restoring what it has lost.Trade ReviewRichly researched, artfully constructed and consistently compelling. * TLS *Invaluable new biography * Daily Telegraph *Invaluable... ought to be read by everyone who wishes to know more about this very singular Pope. * Irish Independent *A gracefully written and meticulously researched account of Francis' life... the best English-language biography of the pope to date. * New York Times Book Review *The most substantial biography by far * The Times *A fine new biography... Fair, judicious and compelling. * The New York Times *A fast-moving and colourful personal analysis of what drives the pontiff, and the many events that have formed his unique and gregarious personality. * The Universe *A must-read for all Pope Francis watchers. * The Tablet *The author has a deft way of mixing recent incidents with his subject's early life... [The pope's] idiosyncratic humanism, forged in a land of political and economic turmoil, seems infectious. This book explains where it comes from. * The Economist *Who is this larger-than-life man leading the charge? What are Francis's origins, how did he come to his beliefs and where is he taking his church? The Great Reformer, a new biography of the man born Jorge Mario Bergoglio, offers an illuminating guide. * Washington Post *Will be useful in understanding the actions of a man whose influence and international importance cannot but grow. * Observer *Shows why Pope Francis is not a silly old commie. The author's insights into his Argentine background and hard spiritual road make sense of his rejection of the trappings of power and intellectual elitism. * Spectator, Best Books of 2015 *As an English-language account of the Pope's Argentine heritage, this book will be hard to beat. * Catholic Herald *

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Book SynopsisWINNER OF THE TIMES BIOGRAPHY OF THE YEAR PRIZE AT THE CROSS BRITISH SPORTS BOOK AWARDS 2017In the spring of 1901 a teenager stood on top of a hill, gazed out in wonderment at the Australian landscape and decided he wanted to be a mountaineer. Two decades later, the same man stood in a blizzard beneath the summit of Mount Everest, within sight of his goal to be the first to stand on the roof of the world. George Finch was at the highest point ever reached by a human being and only his decision to save the life of his stricken companion stopped him from reaching the summit.George Finch was a rebel of the first order, a man who dared to challenge the British establishment who disliked his independence, background, long hair and lack of an Oxbridge education. Despite this, he not only became one of the world's greatest alpinists, earning the grudging respect of his rival George Mallory, but pioneered the use of the artificial oxygen that enabled Everest to finally be conquered thirty years after his own attempt. A renowned scientist, a World War I hero and a Fellow of the Royal Society, involved in the development of some of the twentieth century's most important inventions, his skills helped save London from burning to the ground during the Blitz. Finch's public accomplishments, however, were shadowed by his complicated private life and his fraught relationship with his son, the actor Peter Finch.Acclaimed biographer Robert Wainwright restores George Finch to his rightful place in history with this remarkable tribute to one of the twentieth century's most eccentric anti-heroes.'One of the two best Alpinists of his time - Mallory was the other.' The TimesTrade Review[A] compelling biography... As a study of a man whose greatness we would do well to remember and applaud, it sparkles. * Independent *Finch emerges from the pages of Robert Wainwright's The Maverick Mountaineer as a keen explorer of geographical, professional and romantic terrain... Wainwright chronicles it all with aplomb... Wainwright has done a fine job of rescuing his protagonist from the footnotes of climbing history. He has restored the reputation of a man whose achievements were frequently overshadowed by the romantic fate of Mallory and the later triumph of Edmund Hillary. We rediscover a climber who, as Finch phrased it, had "the craft at his finger-ends". * Daily Telegraph *Finch was the best technical climber of his time, and he reached farther up Everest than anyone had done before - stopping only to carry a novice companion to safety. Few Western climbers have contributed as much...The best passages... are those that describe the battle of scientific progress against entrenched snobbery - a fight that may have cost Finch the chance to stand on top of the world, but ought to be remembered. * The Economist *Robert Wainwright has conjured up the rasp of crampons on sheet ice, the taste of peaches eaten from the tin, and the bitchiness endemic among the frozen-bearded tribe of climbers and explorers * Spectator *Fascinating * Sydney Morning Herald *Tells the story of a difficult, brilliant man whose remarkable achievements were overshadowed by those of the better-known Mallory and Sir Edmund Hillary. * Daily Mail *A marvellously entertaining story that at times resembles a glossy television period drama. * Daily Express on Sheila *The charm of Wainwright's biography is that he makes us see what an engaging, admirable and sometimes heroic quality it is to be a life-enhancer like Sheila. -- Jane Shilling, Daily Mail on SheilaThis splendid biography evokes the glamour of a vanished age. * Mail on Sunday on Sheila *Wainwright's extremely readable style is largely linear, with tantalising references to future events. * Yorkshire Post *The Maverick Mountaineer is a skilfully written books which contains much assiduous research. The narrative is thoughtfully enhanced by the use of diaries and letters from the Finch family archive. * Climb Magazine *

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Book SynopsisBird-Bent Grass chronicles an extraordinary mother-daughter relationship that spans distance, time, and, eventually, debilitating illness. Personal, familial, and political narratives unfold through the letters that Geeske Venema-de Jong and her daughter Kathleen exchanged during the late 1980s and through their weekly conversations, which started after Geeske was diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease twenty years later. In 1986, Kathleen accepted a three-year teaching assignment in Uganda, after a devastating civil war, and Geeske promised to be her daughter's most faithful correspondent. The two women exchanged more than two hundred letters that reflected their lively interest in literature, theology, and politics, and explored ideas about identity, belonging, and home in the context of cross-cultural challenges. Two decades later, with Geeske increasingly beset by Alzheimer's disease, Kathleen returned to the letters, where she rediscovered the evocative image of a tiny, bright meadow bird perched precariously on a blade of elephant grass. That image - of simultaneous tension, fragility, power, and resilience - sustained her over the years that she used the letters as memory prompts in a larger strategy to keep her intellectually gifted mother alive.Deftly woven of excerpts from their correspondence, conversations, journal entries, and email updates, Bird-Bent Grass is a complex and moving exploration of memory, illness, and immigration; friendship, conflict, resilience, and forgiveness; cross-cultural communication, the ethics of international development, and letter-writing as a technology of intimacy. Throughout, it reflects on the imperative and fleeting business of being alive and loving others while they're ours to hold.Trade ReviewAn extraordinary and deftly written memoir, Bird-Bent Grass: A Memoir, in Pieces is an inherently compelling read from beginning to end. Complex, candid, and offering an intrinsically fascinating account that will prove to be an enduringly valued addition to both community and academic library Contemporary Biography collections. -- Margaret Lane -- Midwest Book Review, 20180622"Bird-Bent Grass is a rich contribution to memoir and epistolary literature. As in the letters of Paul in the Bible and Aphra Behn's Love-Letters Between a Nobleman and His Sister, for example, Venema explores the rich literary potential of changing and interweaving perspectives as well as the intrigue of letters gone astray. "This book contains lush language on global themes of conflict, abuse, estrangement and death, and reminds us of the significance of what a letter once was. I want to clap a glass case on it; letters have become museum artifacts, and this project shows what has been lost since the first emails were sent seven years after these first letters were written in 1987. Venema has done a marvellous job of examining the significance of letter-writing in cementing bonds across mother-daughter, African-North American and historic-past-present relationships." - Faith Eidse, co-editor of Unrooted Childhoods: Memoirs of Growing Up Global and author of Healing Falls (forthcoming)Readers who are walking the journey of Alzheimer's with a loved one should find a sense of rapport with this story. Venema describes the progress of the disease in an honest and straightforward way, tinged with sadness, but always spiced with laughter. -- Barb Draper -- Canadian Mennonite, 20181101It's a deeply beautiful, thoughtful, celebratory book ... important and elegant. -- Charlene Diehl, Director, Winnipeg International Writers Festival"I felt [...] both moved and enlightened by the documenting of two such curious and articulate and inclusive intellects--by the conversations that move through this memoir, and link its disparate parts--by wise and profound detailing of this auto-ethnography. The image of "bird-bent grass" from the title evokes for me both a close observation of affect and a contemplation of impermanence, and I was invited to experience both of these states inside a lively, articulate, and sensitive account." Karen Hofmann, Prairie FireBird-Bent Grass is a compelling memoir that offers a thoughtful and evocative engagement with questions of identity, memory, and the relationships that help to shape and define a person. -- Canadian Literature (web), 20181114[Bird-Bent Grass] demonstrates that, and how, a substantial, complex memoir can be fashioned out of domestic life writing (personal correspondence, diaries, and recorded conversations and reminiscences). Such an achievement is especially welcome at a time when the family archive is endangered by the broad shift to electronic communication and social media. -- G. Thomas Couser -- BiographyTable of Contents you come home. we need to talk 1 perfect correspondence 2 crosswords 3 post secret 4 new meadow 5 holy shipwreck postscript: waiting for you here notes acknowledgements

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Book SynopsisAlfred Thomas Wood was nothing and everything. One hundred years before the Hollywood film “The Great Impostor,” Wood, the Great Absquatulator, roved through the momentous mid-19th century events from Halifax, Nova Scotia, to New England, Liberia, Great Britain, Ireland, Germany, Canada, the U.S. Mid-West and the South. An Oxford-educated preacher in Maine and Boston, he claimed to be a Cambridge-educated doctor of divinity in Liberia, whereas neither University admitted black students then. He spent 18 months in an English prison. In Hamburg in 1854, he published a history of Liberia in German. Later, in Montreal, he claimed to have been Superintendent of Public Works in Sierra Leone. He served the African Methodist Episcopal Church in Ohio, Indiana and Illinois as an Oxford-educated DD, then toiled in post-Civil War Tennessee as a Cambridge-trained MD. People who knew him couldn’t wait to forget him.In his Foreword, Rapper Webster (Aly Ndiaye) compares Wood to a mid-19th-century Forrest Gump but also to Malcolm X, before Malcolm became political.

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Book SynopsisA riveting blend of true crime and memoir, following the unravelling of a New Brunswick family after a brutal murder.On December 15, 1974, when Amy Bell was one year old, the city of Moncton, New Brunswick, was consumed with the search for two missing police officers ?Corporal Aurèle Bourgeois and Constable Michael O''Leary. They had been abducted by petty criminals Richard Ambrose and James Hutchison after a kidnapping that had scored them $15,000. The search would lead to a clearing in the woods where the officers were found ? murdered, and buried in shallow graves.Amy''s father, Ed Bell, stepped up to defend the killers. His unpopular stance?"every person accused of a crime deserves a defence" ? eventually led to the ruin of his career and his marriage, and Amy and her brother lived with the aftereffects: poverty and isolation. Ed Bell never spoke of his involvement in this case. It wasn''t until forty-two years later, when he lay dying, that Amy, now a crime historian, stumbled upon a Polaroid photograph of one of the killers among her father''s things. That discovery led her on a search for answers.Life Sentence: How My Father Defended Two Murderers and Lost Himself is a riveting work that fuses personal and criminal justice history to tell the story of a horrific crime and examine its terrible costs. Includes personal and archival news images.

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Book SynopsisIn the nineteenth century it was criminally easy to bump off unwanted relatives. A Household Thrown into Chaos Plumstead village, 2 November 1833. Wealthy landlord, George Bodle is taken violently ill. He dies within hours. When his wife, daughter and two maids are also taken ill, there is only one terrifying explanation . . . arsenic poisoning. A Murder Most FoulYet, while arsenic was readily available over the counter in the 1800s, poisoning was almost impossible to prove. As the evidence mounted up, a picture emerged of bitter family rivalries, brewing resentment, greed and ill-will. A Sensational TaleIn this account of one of history's most notorious poisonings, Sandra Hempel tells the story of the birth of toxicology - the science of poison - and of a mystery which gripped the nation.Trade ReviewSandra Hempel is an engaging writer, adept at distilling tricky science. -- Kate Colquhoun * SUNDAY TIMES *Sandra Hempel is an engaging writer, adept at distilling tricky science. -- Kate Colquhoun * SUNDAY TIMES *

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Book SynopsisFor over 60 years, spanning from his childhood to the Cold War to the current day, former Israeli paratrooper and Six Day War veteran Uri Geller has been a major enigma. Is he merely one of the most convincing stage magicians in history, a multimillionaire entertainer, courted by presidents and rock stars? Or is the now 67 year-old UK resident the possessor of genuine paranormal powers, which have not only been tested and verified by the most demanding scientific laboratories in the US, but employed by the US and other western powers in secret operations? In July, a sensational new BBC2 documentary by Oscar-winning director Vikram Jayanti aired, bringing to light the most convincing testimony ever heard - much from retired CIA chiefs - that Geller, alongside being one of the most famous people in the world in his day, was, as late as post-9/11, operated as a psychic spy by the US military spymasters and those of other governments. But the revelations in the BBC film are merely the tip of the spooky iceberg according to FT and Observer technology writer Jonathan Margolis, who wrote Geller's biography in the late 1990s. Much weirder, scientist-documented paranormal phenomena manifested around Uri Geller in secret US government facilities throughout the 1970s and 80s. In The Secret Life of Uri Geller, the always sceptical Margolis tells the full story of how a poor boy from a broken family in the back streets of Tel Aviv went from being a playground sensation whom friends recall as baffling hapless teachers with his strange powers - to a bizarre player in the Cold War superpower mind games of the 1970s, later reactivated for the war on terrorism in this century. To those who remember Geller in his heyday to younger people who have barely heard of him, it is one of the strangest true stories ever told.

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Book SynopsisThe chief prosecution witness in the Moors Murders trial gives his account of the case after more than four decades of silenceDespite standing as chief prosecution witness in the Moors Murders trial, David Smith was vilified by the public due to the accusations thrown at him by Myra Hindley and Ian Brady about his involvement in their crimes. Hindley's later confession that she and Brady had lied in an attempt to reduce their sentences did little to diminish the slurs against his name. For over four decades, Smith was asked by writers and film-makers to tell his story. Apart from a handful of brief interviews, he always refused. Carol Ann Lee met Smith during her research for One of Your Own, her critically acclaimed biography of Hindley, following which he finally agreed to reveal all. In Evil Relations (previously published as Witness), interviews, archival research and, most significantly, David Smith's own vivid memoir are fused to create an unforgettable, often harrowing account of his life before, during and after the Moors Murders.David Smith lived in rural Ireland with his wife prior to his death in May 2012. He is survived by four children and several grandchildren. Carol Ann Lee is an acclaimed biographer and has written extensively on the Holocaust. Her most recent publication, One of Your Own, focused on the life and death of Myra Hindley.Trade ReviewIf you thought nothing more could possibly be written about the harrowing Moors Murders, you were wrong. David Smith was there and his story is both chilling and sad * Manchester Evening News *Deeply affecting (****) * Daily Express *

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Book SynopsisPioneering birth educator and author Janet Balaskas founded the Active Birth Movement in the 1980s. Her ideas – based on the core principle that women should take ownership of their bodies during birth and be free to assume upright positions in labour – have transformed birth for women and their birth companions across the world. In this inspiring memoir, illustrated with beautiful birth images taken by photographer Anthea Sieveking over two decades, Janet explains the essential philosophy of her approach and how the Active Birth Movement has grown and helped generations of mothers to prepare for birth, by honouring the importance of the beginning of life and empowering them to confidently trust and follow their instincts.

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Book SynopsisThe range of the book: from wartime England to colonial Assam; from sapper training in India to jungle warfare in Malaya – Tea, Love and War tells the unique true story of the child of an exploited village woman gaining recognition and acceptance in suburban England. It is split into three parts: Stuart and Mary’s story, David’s story, and Ann’s story. Stuart, working on a tea estate in the jungles of Assam, fathers a child by a teenage native woman. Stuart’s letters to his family in pre-war England vividly describe his life as a planter in colonial India but conceal his secret love life. When war breaks out, Stuart joins the Indian army, trains as a sapper and is posted to Malaya, blowing bridges in the desperate rearguard action against the Japanese invasion. Back in wartime England, his sister Mary marries Stuart’s best friend, Arthur, who decides to train as an army officer. Mary, now a young mother pregnant with her second child, tells of the year’s delay in hearing news of her brother’s death at the fall of Singapore. Before the child is born, she learns that Arthur has been killed in action in Italy. The story switches to a jungle village in Assam where a small Anglo-Indian child named Ann fights her way through poverty and discrimination, always seeking the identity of her father and his family. Tea, Love and War is a gripping true story, narrated by Mary through her son David. “Much of the text is taken from the many exercise books that she filled with her memories, and whilst my investigations have expanded and updated her story, the history of the relevant elements of the Second World War, the Blitz and public perception of the Malayan campaign leading to the fall of Singapore are more eloquently seen from her individual viewpoint.” The book will appeal to fans of autobiographies, history and social history – Anglo-Indian culture and exploitation of women in India are key themes in the text – and has been inspired by Wild Swans.

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Book SynopsisIn 1909, the largest department store in London's West End, designed and built from scratch, opened in Oxford Street in a glorious burst of publicity. The mastermind behind the façade was American retail genius Harry Gordon Selfridge: maverick businessman, risk-taker, dandy and one of the greatest showmen the retail world has ever known. His talents were to create the seduction of shopping, and as his success and fame grew, so did his glittering lifestyle: mansions, yachts, gambling, racehorses - and mistresses. From the glamour of Edwardian England, through the turmoil of the Great War and the heady excesses of the 1920s and beyond, Selfridges Department Store was 'a theatre with the curtain going up at 9 o'clock each morning'. Mr Selfridge reveals the captivating story of the rise and fall of the man who revolutionised the way we shop. The third series of Mr Selfridge will air on ITV in January 2015. 'Lively and entertaining' Sunday Telegraph 'Will change your view of shopping forever' Vogue 'Harry Selfridge revolutionised the way we shop ... fascinating' Daily MailTrade ReviewIn this energetic and wonderfully detailed biography, Lindy Woodhead ... provides an enthralling description of fashion, politics, music and dance, the arts, the sciences advertising and the use of the media, during the decades before the Second war. * Evening Standard *A rich social history of a time of great change * Spectator Business *A fascinating biographical, as well as sociological, study -- Independent on Sunday

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Book SynopsisA Times Biography of the Year 'I learned a lot reading this ... the strength of Fracture is that it is very much like a cracking radio script: entertaining and easy to digest' Spectator Ada Lovelace. Frederick Douglass. Vladimir Lenin. Marie Curie. Frieda Kahlo. Carl Jung. Tupac Shakur. All geniuses who changed the world in ways that still influence our lives today. And all men and women who experienced, in childhood, trauma so severe that it should have broken them completely. While presenting Great Lives on Radio 4, Matthew Parris noticed a trend in the lives of the exceptional people the programme covered: many of them had been marked by extreme trauma and deprivation. They seemed to have succeeded not only in spite of their backgrounds, but perhaps even because of them. As Matthew Parris brings each individual's story to life in this original and compelling study, it becomes clear that we must rethink the origins of success, as well as the legacy of trauma.Trade ReviewGraceful and considered ... an elegant, compassionate and wide-ranging tribute to the resilience of humans * The Times *Parris has a feel for language, a sense of history and a wonderful wit * Scotland on Sunday *Parris is a skilful entertainer, who informs as well as amuses. * Literary Review *I learned a lot reading this ... the strength of Fracture is that it is very much like a cracking radio script: entertaining and easy to digest * Spectator *This wide-ranging biographical selection offers thought-provoking accounts of human resilience -- Must Reads * Daily Mail *

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Book SynopsisReinaldo Arenas was born to a poverty-stricken family in rural Cuba. By the time of his death in New York four decades later, he had become one of Cuba's most important poets, an outspoken critic of Castro's regime and one of the leading gay voices of the twentieth century. In Before Night Falls, Arenas tells of his odyssey from young rebel fighting for the Revolution, through his suppression as a writer, his disillusionment with Castro, his imprisonment and torture, to his eventual exile from Cuba to New York, where in 1987 he was diagnosed with AIDS. He committed suicide in 1990, ending a life of constant struggle against repression. In a farewell note, Arenas wrote: Due to my delicate state of health and to the terrible depression that causes me not to be able to continue writing and struggling for the freedom of Cuba, I am ending my life ... I do not want to convey to you a message of defeat, but of continued struggle and hope. Cuba will be free. I already am. (signed) Reinaldo ArenasTrade ReviewOne of the most shattering testimonials ever written on the subject of oppression and defiance -- Mario Vargas LlosaReading Arenas is like witnessing a bare consciousness in the process of assimilating the most universal, but powerful, human experiences and turning them into literature * The New York Times *Any attempt to reckon with Cuba's torturous twentieth century will have to take into account Arenas's monumental work ... an essential human testimony, joyful and enraged, a triumph of conscience -- Garth GreenwellA document of a particular and disturbing honesty by one of the truly great writers to come out of Latin America * Chicago Tribune *One of the most searing satirical writers of the 20th century, a worthy successor to Aristophanes and Swift -- Jaime Manrique * Village Voice *

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