This book demonstrates the relevance of homosexuality and homophobia in the development of a social ethos in Cuba through the twentieth century until the mid-1990s. The issue of homosexuality and homophobia was central to the design of a Cuban national identity after the departure of the Spanish, as the discussions about the Cuban male by Enrique José Varona, Benjamín Céspedes, Pedro Guiralt and José Martí show. The issue was equally central to the portrait of the Cuban nation after Fidel Castro came to power, as the number of laws created from the mid-1960s to prevent homosexuality and control homosexuals in Cuba shows. There have been constant references to the issue in political speeches and in literature. During the revolutionary period, Cuban cultural institutions (mainly ICAIC and UNEAC) promoted those artists who, they felt, supported the revolutionary project (for example Gutiérrez Alea) and silenced those who evidenced disappointment with the measures developed by the government in the field of culture and sexual freedom (for example Arenas).

Identifying the ideological basis on which the ICAIC and the UNEAC censored some Cuban authors throughout the first three decades of the revolutionary period is essential to understanding the often complex and veiled messages behind authors’ works throughout the twentieth century. The work of the Cuban homosexual dissidents (Néstor Almendros, José Lezama Lima, Virgilio Piñera and Roger Salas, among others) provides evidence of the social and institutional rejection that turned them into social marginals. Their work ultimately opened up the debate about censorship, invisibility, stigma, social injustice and social displacement on the island.

A detailed analysis of the narrative of Reinaldo Arenas and the ideological ethos behind Fresa y chocolate (1993) reveals the continuing misunderstanding that bedevilled relationships between talented homosexual artists/writers and the leaders and supporters of the Cuban government on the island and abroad, as well as the minimal chance of reconciling opposing ideologies regarding homophobia in Cuba. Arenas and Fresa y chocolate tell the story of how some dissidents could not to adapt to a system that caused an acute sense of paranoia and isolation.