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Reinaldo Arenas Papers

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The collection consists of personal and working papers of Reinaldo Arenas. Included
is a corrected typescript of his unpublished first novel “Que dura es la vida”
(1959). Also included are typescript drafts and some galley and page proofs with
holograph corrections of the novels and novellas Arturo, la
estrella más brillante, El asalto, El color del verano o nuevo jardín de las delicias, La loma del angel, Lazarillo [de
Tormes] (adaptation), Otra vez el mar, El palacio de las blanquísimas mofetas, Viaje a La Habana (Novela en tres viajes); drafts of the
short stories collected under Termina el desfile and of
the unpublished collection Adios a mamá; drafts for the
play Persecución; drafts of the poetry collections El Central, Voluntad de vivir
manifestándose, and Leprosorio, and notes and
drafts of essays and articles, most of which were published in Necesidad de libertad. (The original draft for Arenas's autobiography,
published as Antes que anochezca, is closed to the
public until further notice.) Included also is a copy of Arenas's will, dated 6 March
1990, and material about the author, such as interviews, essays and newspaper
clippings, as well as a cassette of two songs, the lyrics of which Arenas wrote while
hospitalized.Arenas's correspondence with literary figures, publishers, and academic institutions,
covering mainly the period 1980 to 1990, includes letters by Nestor Almendros, Lydia
Cabrera, Guillermo Cabrera Infante, the painter Jorge Camacho, Rita Geada, Juan
Goytisolo, Enrique Labrador Ruiz, Helen Lane, Octavio Paz, Margaret Sayers Peden,
Manuel Puig, Angel Rama, Emir Rodríguez Monegal, and Severo Sarduy.