“Actitudes Extravagantes” and Queering Identities

This chapter explores to what extent Arenas knowingly followed the Marielenas’ iconoclastic rupture with Cuban and U.S. (homo)sexual dynamics and erotic expression of sexual desire. Arenas often displayed a dual conflictive persona: On the one hand, he proudly referred to himself as a “Cuban author in exile,” an ideological category that he traced as the beginning of modern Cuban literature beginning in the 19th century with a “destierro,” very much like other notable Cuban writers. On the other hand, in his public self-portrayal as a Marielena, that is, as a pájaro, and as an activist queer writer, Arenas fully intended to take the developing mainstream Queer literary cannon by storm.