Nicolas Chinardet's Reviews > Before Night Falls: A Memoir

Even before the actual beginning of the book (in the introduction) we become aware of how unreliable Arenas is as a narrator. The impression is repeatedly reinforced throughout the book to the point that it become impossible to fathom what is true from what is exaggeration or even fiction under the pen of someone who seems perpetually dissatisfied with his lot and clearly has an axe to grind.

Having managed to read most of it in the original Spanish with the English translation at hand I was also surprised how shoddy and disrespectful of the text that translation appeared to be. The names of certain characters have been changed (partially and entirely), the pagination altered (paragraphs added, one moved from the front of a chapter to the end of the previous one), and some significant inaccuracies, not to mention a clear lack of cultural sensitivity from the translator with regards to the gay world.