The Assault - Paperback

by Reinaldo Arenas (Author), Andrew Hurley (Translator), Thomas Colchie (Introduction by)

In this, the final volume in the series of five novels that constitute his "secret history of Cuba", Reinaldo Arenas paints a harrowing, and at times boldly entertaining, Kafka-esque picture of a dehumanized people living in a world where homosexuality is a crime punishable by death and a cockroach hunt makes for a national holiday. Narrated by a hate-filled government torturer who has become an agent for the "Bureau of Counterwhispering"," The Assault follows his travels through a blackly humorous shadowland as he winnow out whisperers, sexual deviants, and dissidents of every sort--until memory has been banished and spoken language has been nearly forgotten.

Author Biography

Reinaldo Arenas was born in Cuba in 1943. In 1980, he was one of 120,000 Cubans who arrived in the United States on the Mariel boatlift. Arenas settled in New York where he lived until his death from AIDS ten years later.
Andrew Hurley is a translator of numerous works of literature, criticism, history, and memoir. He is professor emeritus at the University of Puerto Rico.

Thomas Colchie is an acclaimed translator, editor, and literary agent for international authors. He is the editor of A Hammock Beneath the Mangoes. He has written for the Village Voice and The Washington Post. His translations include Manuel Puig's Kiss of the Spider Woman and (with Elizabeth Bishop, Gregory Rabassa, and Mark Strand) Carlos Drummond de Andrade's Travelling in the Family.