Castration

Lorna Scott Fox

• Mea Cuba by G. Cabrera Infante, translated by Kenneth Hall
  Faber, 497 pp, £17.50, October 1994, ISBN 0 571 17255 5
• Before Night Falls by Reinaldo Arenas, translated by Dolores Koch
  Viking, 317 pp, £16.00, July 1994, ISBN 0 670 84078 5

Ever since 1956, when Fidel Castro left Veracruz for Santiago de Cuba like a conquistador in reverse, Mexican-Cuban relations have been a sensitive area. Cynical Mexicans might take the view that their government’s attitude is, or rather was, a matter of ‘I’ll support your revolution – and appear to take a stand against the US – if you don’t export it over here.’ At one stage in the early Nineties, therefore, there were dozens of Cuban artists in Mexico, enjoying the Velvet Exile. They could come and go from Cuba, eat their fill, lose money and innocence at capitalist roulette; but they still had to watch what they said. This began to seem like the worst of both worlds, and before long they all leapt off the Mexican trampoline into the great beyond. Until August this year, when Castro threw the frontiers open, it was a painfully irrevocable choice.