Guillermo Cabrera Infante (; Gibara, 22 April 1929 – 21 February 2005) was a

Cuba Cuba, officially the Republic of Cuba, is an island country, comprising the island of Cuba (largest island), Isla de la Juventud, and List of islands of Cuba, 4,195 islands, islets and cays surrounding the main island. It is located where the ...

novelist A novelist is an author or writer of novels, though often novelists also write in other genres of both fiction and non-fiction. Some novelists are professional novelists, thus make a living wage, living writing novels and other fiction, while other ...

, essayist,

translator Translation is the communication of the meaning of a source-language text by means of an equivalent target-language text. The English language draws a terminological distinction (which does not exist in every language) between ''trans ...

screenwriter A screenwriter (also called scriptwriter, scribe, or scenarist) is a person who practices the craft of writing for visual mass media, known as screenwriting. These can include short films, feature-length films, television programs, television ...

, and

critic A critic is a person who communicates an assessment and an opinion of various forms of creative works such as Art criticism, art, Literary criticism, literature, Music journalism, music, Film criticism, cinema, Theater criticism, theater, Fas ...

; in the 1950s he used the pseudonym G. Caín, and used Guillermo Cain for the screenplay of the cult classic film ''

Vanishing Point A vanishing point is a point (geometry), point on the projection plane, image plane of a graphical perspective, perspective rendering where the two-dimensional perspective projections of parallel (geometry), parallel lines in three-dimensional ...

'' (1971). A one-time supporter of the politics of Fidel Castro, Cabrera Infante went into exile to

London London is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of both England and the United Kingdom, with a population of in . London metropolitan area, Its wider metropolitan area is the largest in Wester ...

in 1965. He is best known for the novel '' Tres tristes tigres'' (literally: "three sad tigers", published in English as ''Three Trapped Tigers''), which has been compared favorably to

James Joyce James Augustine Aloysius Joyce (born James Augusta Joyce; 2 February 1882 – 13 January 1941) was an Irish novelist, poet, and literary critic. He contributed to the modernist avant-garde movement and is regarded as one of the most influentia ...

's '' Ulysses''.

Biography

Born in Gibara in Cuba's former Oriente Province (now part of

Holguín Province Holguín () is one of the provinces of Cuba, the third most populous after Havana and Santiago de Cuba. It lies in the southeast of the country. Its major cities include Holguín (the capital), Banes, Antilla, Mayarí, and Moa. The provinc ...

), in 1941 he moved with his parents, to

Havana Havana (; ) is the capital and largest city of Cuba. The heart of La Habana Province, Havana is the country's main port and commercial center.Cuban Communist Party. Originally he intended to become a physician, but abandoned that in favor of writing and his passion for the cinema. Starting in 1950, he studied journalism at the

University of Havana The University of Havana (UH; ) is a public university located in the Vedado district of Havana, the capital of Cuba. Founded on 5 January 1728, the university is the oldest in Cuba, and one of the first to be founded in the Americas. Originall ...

. Under the Batista regime he was arrested and fined in 1952 for publishing a short story which included several English-language profanities. His opposition to Batista later cost him a short jail term. He married for the first time in 1953. From 1954 to 1960 he wrote film reviews for the magazine ''Carteles'', using the

pseudonym A pseudonym (; ) or alias () is a fictitious name that a person assumes for a particular purpose, which differs from their original or true meaning ( orthonym). This also differs from a new name that entirely or legally replaces an individual's o ...

G. Caín; he became its editor in chief, still pseudonymously, in 1957. With the triumph of the

Cuban Revolution The Cuban Revolution () was the military and political movement that overthrew the dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista, who had ruled Cuba from 1952 to 1959. The revolution began after the 1952 Cuban coup d'état, in which Batista overthrew ...

in 1959 he was named director of the Instituto del Cine. He was also head of the literary magazine ''Lunes de Revolución'', a supplement to the Communist newspaper ''Revolución''; however, this supplement was prohibited in 1961 by

Fidel Castro Fidel Alejandro Castro Ruz (13 August 1926 – 25 November 2016) was a Cuban politician and revolutionary who was the leader of Cuba from 1959 to 2008, serving as the prime minister of Cuba from 1959 to 1976 and President of Cuba, president ...

. He divorced in 1961 and in the same year married his second wife, Miriam Gomez, an actress. Having fallen somewhat out of favor with the Castro regime (the government's ban on a documentary on Havana nightlife made by his brother led to his being forbidden to publish in Cuba), he served from 1962 to 1965 in

Brussels Brussels, officially the Brussels-Capital Region, (All text and all but one graphic show the English name as Brussels-Capital Region.) is a Communities, regions and language areas of Belgium#Regions, region of Belgium comprising #Municipalit ...

, Belgium, as a cultural attaché. During this time, his sentiments turned against the Castro regime; after returning to Cuba for his mother's funeral in 1965, he went into exile, first in

Madrid Madrid ( ; ) is the capital and List of largest cities in Spain, most populous municipality of Spain. It has almost 3.5 million inhabitants and a Madrid metropolitan area, metropolitan area population of approximately 7 million. It i ...

, then in London. In 1966 he published '' Tres tristes tigres'', a highly experimental, Joycean novel, playful and rich in literary allusions, which intended to do for Cuban Spanish what

Mark Twain Samuel Langhorne Clemens (November 30, 1835 – April 21, 1910), known by the pen name Mark Twain, was an American writer, humorist, and essayist. He was praised as the "greatest humorist the United States has produced," with William Fau ...

had done for

American English American English, sometimes called United States English or U.S. English, is the set of variety (linguistics), varieties of the English language native to the United States. English is the Languages of the United States, most widely spoken lang ...

, recording the great variety of its colloquial variations. It won the 1964 Premio Biblioteca Breve for best unpublished novel. He co-wrote the script for Richard C. Sarafian's 1971 cult film ''

'' under the pseudonym Guillermo Caín. Although he is considered a part of the famed Latin American Boom generation of writers that includes his contemporary

Gabriel García Márquez Gabriel José García Márquez (; 6 March 1927 – 17 April 2014) was a Colombian writer and journalist, known affectionately as Gabo () or Gabito () throughout Latin America. Considered one of the most significant authors of the 20th centur ...

, he disdained the label. Ever an iconoclast, he even rejected the label "novel" to describe his most acclaimed works, such as '' Tres tristes tigres'' and ''La Habana para un infante difunto.'' He was influential to Puerto Rican and Cuban writers such as Luis Rafael Sánchez (''La guaracha del Macho Camacho'') and Fernando Velázquez Medina (''Última rumba en La Habana''). In 1997 he received the Premio Cervantes, presented to him by King Juan Carlos of Spain. He died on February 21, 2005, in London, of

sepsis Sepsis is a potentially life-threatening condition that arises when the body's response to infection causes injury to its own tissues and organs. This initial stage of sepsis is followed by suppression of the immune system. Common signs and s ...

. He had two daughters from his first marriage.

Bibliography

* ''Así en la paz como en la guerra'' (1960, "In peace as in war"; a pun on a line from the Lord's Prayer), short story collection * ''Twentieth Century Job'' (1963, published in Spanish as "Un oficio del siglo XX"), collection of film reviews * '' Tres tristes tigres'' (1967, published in English as ''Three Trapped Tigers''; the original title refers to a Spanish-language tongue-twister, and literally means "Three Sad Tigers"; portions of this were later republished as ''Ella cantaba boleros''), novel * ''Vista del amanecer en el trópico'' (1974, published in English as "A View of Dawn in the Tropics"), novel * ''O'' (1975), short story / essay collection * ''Exorcismos de esti(l)o'' (1976, "Exorcisms of style"; ''estilo'' means style and ''estío'', summertime), novel/short story collection * ''La Habana para un Infante Difunto'' (1979, published in English as ''Infante's Inferno''; the Spanish title is a pun on "Pavane pour une infante defunte", title of a piano piece by

Maurice Ravel Joseph Maurice Ravel (7 March 1875 – 28 December 1937) was a French composer, pianist and conductor. He is often associated with Impressionism in music, Impressionism along with his elder contemporary Claude Debussy, although both composer ...

), novel * ''Holy Smoke'' (1985, in English, later translated into Spanish as ''Puro Humo''), a fictionalized "history" of cigars * ''Mea Cuba'' (1991, the title implies "My Cuba" but also means "Cuba Pisses" or "Cuba is Pissing" and is a pun on ''"Mea Culpa"''), political essays * ''Arcadia todas las noches'' (1995, "Arcadia every night"), essays * ''Delito por bailar el chachachá'' (1995, in English: ''Guilty of Dancing the ChaChaCha'', 2001, translated by himself), short story collection * ''Ella Cantaba Boleros'' (1996, "She Sang Boleros", consists of sections taken from ''Tres Tristes Tigres''), two novellas * ''Cine o sardina'' (1997, "Cinema or sardine", alludes to the choice his mother gave him between eating and going to the movies), collection of articles * ''Vidas para leerlas'' (1998, "Lives to be read"), essays * ''El Libro de las Ciudades'' (1999, "The Book of the Cities"), collection of writings * ''Todo está hecho con espejos: Cuentos casi completos'' (1999, trans. "Everything is Made with Mirrors: Nearly Complete Stories"), short story collection * ''Infantería'' (2000, title is a pun on his name and the Spanish for "infantry"), collection of writings * ''La ninfa inconstante'' (2008, "The Inconstant Nymph", posthumous), novel * ''Cuerpos divinos'' (2010, "Heavenly Bodies", posthumous), autobiographical novel * ''Mapa dibujado por un espía'' (2013, "Map Drawn by a Spy", posthumous), novel Cabrera Infante also translated James Joyce's ''

Dubliners ''Dubliners'' is a collection of fifteen short stories by James Joyce, first published in 1914. It presents a naturalistic depiction of Irish middle class life in and around Dublin in the early years of the 20th century. The stories were writ ...

'' into Spanish (1972) and wrote screenplays, including ''

'' and the adaptation of

Malcolm Lowry Clarence Malcolm Lowry (; 28 July 1909 – 26 June 1957) was an English poet and novelist who is best known for his 1947 novel ''Under the Volcano'', which was voted No. 11 in the Modern Library's 100 Best Novels list.

's ''

Under the Volcano ''Under the Volcano'' is a novel by the English writer Malcolm Lowry (1909–1957) published in 1947. It tells the story of Geoffrey Firmin, an alcoholic British Consulate general, consul in the Mexican city of Cuernavaca, Quauhnahuac on the D ...

''.

References

External links

*
Guillermo Cabrera Infante
(in Spanish, part of Biografías y Vidas). Retrieved February 22, 2005.
Guillermo Cabrera Infante
(in Spanish, from a site about the Premio Cervantes). Retrieved February 22, 2005.
Guillermo Cabrera Infante
(in Spanish, from LiteraturaCubana.com). Retrieved February 22, 2005.

Associated Press The Associated Press (AP) is an American not-for-profit organization, not-for-profit news agency headquartered in New York City. Founded in 1846, it operates as a cooperative, unincorporated association, and produces news reports that are dist ...

obituary, on the site of ''

The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in Manchester in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'' and changed its name in 1959, followed by a move to London. Along with its sister paper, ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardi ...

''. Retrieved February 22, 2005.
The Guillermo Cabrera Infante Papers
are held at Princeton University Library, Special Collections. * {{DEFAULTSORT:Cabrera Infante, Guillermo 1929 births 2005 deaths 20th-century Cuban essayists 20th-century Cuban male writers 20th-century Cuban novelists 20th-century translators Cuban emigrants to England Cuban people of Canarian descent Cuban dissidents Cuban male novelists Cuban translators English–Spanish translators Translators of James Joyce Cuban male essayists Postmodern writers Premio Cervantes winners Deaths from sepsis Infectious disease deaths in England Cultural attachés Political prisoners in Cuba Cuban journalists Journalists imprisoned in Cuba

Biography

Bibliography

Further reading

English

Spanish

See also

References

External links