ISBN 978-1-931010-16-0
141 pp. | paper | $13.00

by Reinaldo Bragado Bretaña
translated by David William Foster

Night Watch is David William Foster’s translation of La noche vigilada, the story of a Cuban writer who has lived all his life under the oppressive Castro regime. Having gone to great lengths to hide his writings, he longs for artistic freedom. He wanders in the streets of Havana at night and eventually becomes involved with a woman he meets at a café. After a frightening brush with the police in a raid on the café in search of dissidents, the woman and two of her friends persuade him to travel on a raft to the United States. Once in Miami, he becomes part of a large community of exiles as he attempts to adjust to a lifestyle vastly different from what he has known previously.

Reinaldo Bragado Bretaña was born in Havana, Cuba, where he worked as a high school teacher of history. In 1977, while attempting to flee the country, he was arrested and sentenced to two years in prison. In 1981 he was released, and in 1988 the Castro regime expelled him and he moved to the United States. He now works as a freelance writer and a commentator on Radio Martí and Radio Nacional de Colombia.

David William Foster is Regents’ Professor of Spanish at Arizona State University. His most recent publication is Violence in Argentine Literature: Cultural Responses to Tyranny (University of Missouri Press, 1995). He is also the editor of Sexual Textualities: Essays on Queer/ing Latin American Writing (University of Texas Press, 1997).