Guillermo Rosales (1946–1993) was a Cuban novelist. A double exile, writing in reaction both to Cuba's totalitarian regime and to the indifference of Cuban-American exiles bent on achieving the American Dream, Rosales created some of the best Cuban literature of the second half of the twentieth century, garnering comparisons to Carlos Montenegro and

Reinaldo Arenas Reinaldo Arenas (July 16, 1943 – December 7, 1990) was a Cuban poet, novelist, and playwright known as a vocal critic of Fidel Castro, the Cuban Revolution, and the Cuban government. His memoir of the Cuban dissident movement and of being a po ...

Biography

Born in

Havana Havana (; Spanish: ''La Habana'' ) is the capital and largest city of Cuba. The heart of the La Habana Province, Havana is the country's main port and commercial center.

, Rosales was a lifelong misfit diagnosed with

schizophrenia Schizophrenia is a mental disorder characterized by continuous or relapsing episodes of psychosis. Major symptoms include hallucinations (typically hearing voices), delusions, and disorganized thinking. Other symptoms include social w ...

. A journalist and writer while still in Cuba, he had an early brush with fame when his novel ''El Juego de la Viola,'' was a finalist in the reputable "Casa de las Americas" contest. But in 1979 he fled Castro's regime and went into exile in Miami, where he disappeared from public view. He ended up in halfway houses, "those marginal refuges where the desperate and hopeless go." The time he spent there provided the author with the material to write his most famous and viscerally haunting novella, ''Boarding Home'' (known in English as ''The Halfway House''). He was the winner of the prestigious 1987 "Letras de Oros" (Golden Letters) contest, judged by the Mexican poet and

Nobel Nobel often refers to: *Nobel Prize, awarded annually since 1901, from the bequest of Swedish inventor Alfred Nobel Nobel may also refer to: Companies *AkzoNobel, the result of the merger between Akzo and Nobel Industries in 1994 *Branobel, or ...

laureate

Octavio Paz Octavio Paz Lozano (March 31, 1914 – April 19, 1998) was a Mexican poet and diplomat. For his body of work, he was awarded the 1977 Jerusalem Prize, the 1981 Miguel de Cervantes Prize, the 1982 Neustadt International Prize for Literature, and ...

. Rosales committed suicide in Miami in 1993, at the age of 47. Before doing so, he destroyed most of his work. Two novels survived: ''El Juego de la Viola'' (1967) and ''Boarding Home'' (1987). In 2013, the Cuban writers Elizabeth Mirabal and Carlos Velazco published the book "Talking about Guillermo Rosales" (Editorial Silueta). ''Boarding Home'' was translated into English by Anna Kushner as ''The Halfway House'' and published by New Directions in 2009, featuring a preface by Jose Manuel Prieto. It has been hailed for its precise, lapidary style and its uncompromising treatment of personal responsibility for totalitarian rule.

Publishers Weekly ''Publishers Weekly'' (''PW'') is an American weekly trade news magazine targeted at publishers, librarians, booksellers, and literary agents. Published continuously since 1872, it has carried the tagline, "The International News Magazine of ...

(Starred Review) praised it as a "frightening, nihilistic cousin of ''

One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest may refer to: * ''One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest'' (novel), a 1962 novel by Ken Kesey * ''One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest'' (play), a 1963 stage adaptation of the novel starring Kirk Douglas * ''One Flew Over the ...

''". ''El Juego de la Viola'' is forthcoming from New Directions under the title ''Leapfrog''.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Rosales, Guillermo 1946 births 1993 deaths Cuban male novelists 20th-century Cuban novelists 20th-century male writers 1993 suicides Suicides in Florida