Mona and other tales
/ Reinaldo Arenas
- New York : Vintage , 2001
- 190 p. ; 21 cm
The empty shoes -- The glass tower -- With my eyes closed -- The great force -- Mona -- The parade begins -- In the shade of the almond tree -- Something is happening on the top floor -- The parade ends -- Alipio's kingdom -- Halley's comet -- Blacks -- Traitor -- End of a story.
Mona and Other Tales covers Reinaldo Arenas's entire career: his recently rediscovered debut (which got him a job at the Biblioteca Nacional in Havana), stories written in a political prison, and some of his last works, written in exile. Many of the stories have not previously appeared in English. Here is the tender story of a boy who recognizes evil for the first time and decides to ignore it; the tale of a writer struggling between the demands of creativity and of fame; common people dealing with changes brought about by revolution and exile; a romp with a famous, dangerous woman in the Metropolitan Museum; an outrageous fantasy that picks up where Garcia Lorca's famous play The House of Bernardo Alba ends.