Between the exile of Reinaldo Arenas and Néstor Perlongher

Abstract

The trajectory of Reinaldo Arenas and Néstor Pelongher is comparable from different perspectives. Both were exiled due to persecution in their countries because of their political and sexual identity, the reception of each of them in the countries of exile and the contemporary recovery of their figures diverge widely. The stigma against Cuban writers and intellectuals, who went into exile for various reasons after 1959, placed them in a position that distanced them from their South American peers. The ostracism inside the island was replicated in the political and cultural spaces where South American exiles congregated. I make a comparison between the exiles of Arenas and Perlongher, based on the analysis of their personal letters, essayistic and literary texts, confronting these archives with historical sources that allow the reader to dimension the dispute that both writers sustain against the power of the State. The aim is to highlight how the vicissitudes of both writers within leftist or revolutionary movements are related to their sexual identity/orientation. Arenas' confrontation is against the symbolic power of the Revolution and its supporters outside Cuba. Perlongher's distancing from a certain revolutionary left unfolds in a marica or queer militancy, which allows him a positive rootedness in Brazil, while Arenas is constantly on the threshold of not being a communist and not being a pro-Yankee writer either.