Hallucinations

Reinaldo Arenas · 1943–1990 · Cuba

Originally El mundo alucinante (Spanish)

Why it matters

A rebellious eighteenth-century friar flees across an increasingly delirious, shape-shifting Mexico and Europe. Freedom imagined in defiance of the real censorship and persecution closing in on its author.

At a glance

A delirious, shape-shifting picaresque blurs historical fact and fever-dream fantasy.