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      Singing from the Well

      by Reinaldo Arenas
      Published
      Jan 1967
      Main Genre
      General Fiction General Fiction
      Rating
      Pages
      206
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      Series
      Pentagonia Book 1

      About This Book

      His mother talks piously of the heaven that awaits the good, and disciplines him with an ox prod. His grandmother burns his precious crosses for kindling. His cousins meet to plot their grandfather's death. Yet in the hills surrounding his home, another reality exists, a place where his mother wears flowers in her hair, and his cousin Celestino, a poet who inscribes verse on the trunks of trees, understands his visions.

      The first novel in Reinaldo Arenas's "secret history of Cuba," a quintet he called the Pentagonia, Singing from the Well is by turns explosively crude and breathtakingly lyrical. In the end, it is a stunning depiction of a childhood besieged by horror--and a moving defense of liberty and the imagination in a world of barbarity, persecution, and ignorance.

      Series Placement

      Book 1
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      Genres & Themes

      Genres

      General Fiction

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      Formats & Editions

      Browse the different covers, formats, and publication history for this title.

      Paperback

      Paperback edition cover
      Trade Paperback
      Jun 1988 Penguin ISBN 014009444X
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      Hardcover

      Hardcover edition cover
      Hardcover
      First Edition Aug 1987 Viking ISBN 0670808059
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