Guillermo Cabrera Infante
Encyclopedia
Guillermo Cabrera Infante (ɡiˈʎermo kaˈβɾeɾa imˈfante; 22 April 1929 – 21 February 2005) was a Cuba
n novelist, essayist, translator, and critic
; in the 1950s he used the pseudonym G. Caín.
A one-time supporter of the Castro
regime, Cabrera Infante went into exile to London
in 1965. He is best known for the novel Tres Tristes Tigres (literally "three sad tigers", but published in English
as Three Trapped Tigers), which has been compared favorably to James Joyce
's Ulysses
.
in Cuba's former Oriente Province (now part of Holguín Province
), in 1941 he moved with his parents, to Havana
, which would be the setting of nearly all of his writings other than his critical works. His parents were founding members of the 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 he University of Havana
. 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 G. Caín; he became its editor in chief, still pseudonymously, in 1957. With the triumph of the Cuban Revolution
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
.
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
, 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
, 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
had done for American English
, recording the great variety of its colloquial variations.
It is little known that Guillermo Cabrera Infante was the Guillermo Caín who co-wrote the script for the 1971 cult film Vanishing Point.
Although he is considered a part of the famed Latin American "Boom" generation of writers that includes his contemporary Gabriel García Márquez
, he disdained the label. Always the iconoclast, he even rejected the label "novel" for his masterpieces, such as Tres Tristes Tigres and La Habana para un infante difunto. He was influential to Puerto Rican and Cuban writers such Luis Rafael Sánchez
's ( La guaracha del Macho Camacho)and Fernando Velázquez Medina's Ultima rumba en La Habana
In 1997 he received the Premio Cervantes, presented to him by the King Juan Carlos of Spain.
He died on February 21, 2005, in London, of septicemia. He had two daughters by his first marriage.
Cabrera Infante also translated James Joyce's Dubliners
into Spanish (1972) and wrote screenplays, including Vanishing Point
and the adaptation of Malcolm Lowry
's Under the Volcano
.
Spanish
Cuba
The Republic of Cuba is an island nation in the Caribbean. The nation of Cuba consists of the main island of Cuba, the Isla de la Juventud, and several archipelagos. Havana is the largest city in Cuba and the country's capital. Santiago de Cuba is the second largest city...
n novelist, essayist, translator, and critic
Critic
A critic is anyone who expresses a value judgement. Informally, criticism is a common aspect of all human expression and need not necessarily imply skilled or accurate expressions of judgement. Critical judgements, good or bad, may be positive , negative , or balanced...
; in the 1950s he used the pseudonym G. Caín.
A one-time supporter of the Castro
Fidel Castro
Fidel Alejandro Castro Ruz is a Cuban revolutionary and politician, having held the position of Prime Minister of Cuba from 1959 to 1976, and then President from 1976 to 2008. He also served as the First Secretary of the Communist Party of Cuba from the party's foundation in 1961 until 2011...
regime, Cabrera Infante went into exile to London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
in 1965. He is best known for the novel Tres Tristes Tigres (literally "three sad tigers", but published in English
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
as Three Trapped Tigers), which has been compared favorably to James Joyce
James Joyce
James Augustine Aloysius Joyce was an Irish novelist and poet, considered to be one of the most influential writers in the modernist avant-garde of the early 20th century...
's Ulysses
Ulysses (novel)
Ulysses is a novel by the Irish author James Joyce. It was first serialised in parts in the American journal The Little Review from March 1918 to December 1920, and then published in its entirety by Sylvia Beach on 2 February 1922, in Paris. One of the most important works of Modernist literature,...
.
Life
Born in GibaraGibara
Gibara is a municipality of the Province of Holguín in the Republic of Cuba. The main city was founded on January 16, 1817. It is also known as "The White Town", . The City of Gibara possesses a rich history and own culture, in agreement to the lineage of its foundation...
in Cuba's former Oriente Province (now part of Holguín Province
Holguín Province
Holguín is one of the provinces of Cuba, the third most populous after Ciudad de la Habana and Santiago de Cuba. It lies in the northeast of the country. Its major cities include Holguín , Banes, Antilla, Mayarí, and Moa....
), in 1941 he moved with his parents, to Havana
Havana
Havana is the capital city, province, major port, and leading commercial centre of Cuba. The city proper has a population of 2.1 million inhabitants, and it spans a total of — making it the largest city in the Caribbean region, and the most populous...
, which would be the setting of nearly all of his writings other than his critical works. His parents were founding members of the 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 he University of Havana
University of Havana
The University of Havana or UH is a university located in the Vedado district of Havana, Cuba. Founded in 1728, the University of Havana is the oldest university in Cuba, and one of the first to be founded in the Americas...
. 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 G. Caín; he became its editor in chief, still pseudonymously, in 1957. With the triumph of the Cuban Revolution
Cuban Revolution
The Cuban Revolution was an armed revolt by Fidel Castro's 26th of July Movement against the regime of Cuban dictator Fulgencio Batista between 1953 and 1959. Batista was finally ousted on 1 January 1959, and was replaced by a revolutionary government led by Castro...
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 Castro
Fidel Alejandro Castro Ruz is a Cuban revolutionary and politician, having held the position of Prime Minister of Cuba from 1959 to 1976, and then President from 1976 to 2008. He also served as the First Secretary of the Communist Party of Cuba from the party's foundation in 1961 until 2011...
.
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
Brussels , officially the Brussels Region or Brussels-Capital Region , is the capital of Belgium and the de facto capital of the European Union...
, Belgium
Belgium
Belgium , officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a federal state in Western Europe. It is a founding member of the European Union and hosts the EU's headquarters, and those of several other major international organisations such as NATO.Belgium is also a member of, or affiliated to, many...
, 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
Madrid is the capital and largest city of Spain. The population of the city is roughly 3.3 million and the entire population of the Madrid metropolitan area is calculated to be 6.271 million. It is the third largest city in the European Union, after London and Berlin, and its metropolitan...
, 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
Spanish language
Spanish , also known as Castilian , is a Romance language in the Ibero-Romance group that evolved from several languages and dialects in central-northern Iberia around the 9th century and gradually spread with the expansion of the Kingdom of Castile into central and southern Iberia during the...
what Mark Twain
Mark Twain
Samuel Langhorne Clemens , better known by his pen name Mark Twain, was an American author and humorist...
had done for American English
American English
American English is a set of dialects of the English language used mostly in the United States. Approximately two-thirds of the world's native speakers of English live in the United States....
, recording the great variety of its colloquial variations.
It is little known that Guillermo Cabrera Infante was the Guillermo Caín who co-wrote the script for the 1971 cult film Vanishing Point.
Although he is considered a part of the famed Latin American "Boom" generation of writers that includes his contemporary Gabriel García Márquez
Gabriel García Márquez
Gabriel José de la Concordia García Márquez is a Colombian novelist, short-story writer, screenwriter and journalist, known affectionately as Gabo throughout Latin America. He is considered one of the most significant authors of the 20th century. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in...
, he disdained the label. Always the iconoclast, he even rejected the label "novel" for his masterpieces, such as Tres Tristes Tigres and La Habana para un infante difunto. He was influential to Puerto Rican and Cuban writers such Luis Rafael Sánchez
Luis Rafael Sanchez
Dr. Luis Rafael Sánchez a.k.a. "Wico" is a Puerto Rican playwright. Possibly his best known play is La Pasión según Antigona Pérez , a tragedy based on the life of Olga Viscal Garriga-Early years:...
's ( La guaracha del Macho Camacho)and Fernando Velázquez Medina's Ultima rumba en La Habana
In 1997 he received the Premio Cervantes, presented to him by the King Juan Carlos of Spain.
He died on February 21, 2005, in London, of septicemia. He had two daughters by his first marriage.
Works
- Así en la paz como en la guerra (1960, "In peace as in war"; a pun on a line from the Lord's Prayer)
- Twentieth Century Job (1963, a collection film reviews, published in Spanish as "Un oficio del siglo XX")
- Vista del amanecer en el trópico (1964, novel, published in English as "A View of Dawn in the Tropics")
- Tres Tristes Tigres (1967, novel, 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
- Exorcismos de esti(l)o (1976, novel, "Exorcisms of style"; estilo means style and estío, summertime)
- La Habana para un Infante Difunto (1979, memoir, 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 RavelMaurice RavelJoseph-Maurice Ravel was a French composer known especially for his melodies, orchestral and instrumental textures and effects...
) - Holy Smoke, 1985 (in English, later translated into Spanish as Puro Humo)
- Delito por bailar el chachachá, 1995 (in English: Guilty of Dancing the ChaChaCha, 2001, translated by himself)
- Cine o sardina (1997, "Cinema or sardine", alludes to the choice his mother gave him between eating and going to the movies)
- Vidas para leerlas (1998, essays, "Lives to be read")
- Arcadia todas las noches ("Arcadia every night")
- Mea Cuba (1991, political essays, the title means "Cuba Pisses" or "Cuba is Pissing" and is a pun on "Mea Culpa")
- Infantería (title is a pun on his name and the Spanish for "infantry")
Cabrera Infante also translated James Joyce's Dubliners
Dubliners
Dubliners is a collection of 15 short stories by James Joyce, first published in 1914. They were meant to be a naturalistic depiction of Irish middle class life in and around Dublin in the early years of the 20th century....
into Spanish (1972) and wrote screenplays, including Vanishing Point
Vanishing Point
Vanishing Point is a 1971 American action-road movie directed by Richard C. Sarafian; starring Barry Newman, Cleavon Little, and Dean Jagger....
and the adaptation of Malcolm Lowry
Malcolm Lowry
Clarence Malcolm Lowry was an English poet and novelist who was best known for his novel Under the Volcano, which was voted No. 11 in the Modern Library 100 Best Novels list.-Biography:...
's Under the Volcano
Under the Volcano
Under the Volcano is a 1947 semi-autobiographical novel by English writer Malcolm Lowry . The novel tells the story of Geoffrey Firmin, an alcoholic British consul in the small Mexican town of Quauhnahuac , on the Day of the Dead.Surrounded by the helpless presences of his ex-wife, his...
.
Further reading
English- Cabrera Infante's Tres tristes tigres: the trapping effect of the signifier over subject and text / Hartman, Carmen Teresa., 2003
- Guillermo Cabrera Infante: assays, essays and other arts / Nelson, Ardis L., 1999
- Guillermo Cabrera Infante: two islands, many worlds / Souza, Raymond D., 1996
- Guillermo Cabrera Infante and the cinema / Hall, Kenneth E., 1989
- Novel lives: the fictional autobiographies of Guillermo Cabrera Infante and Mario Vargas Llosa / Feal, Rosemary Geisdorfer., 1986
- Cabrera Infante in the Menippean tradition / Nelson, Ardis L., 1983
- A critical study of Tres tristes tigres by Guillermo Cabrera Infante / C.A.H.J Scheybeler., 1977
- Seven voices; seven Latin American writers talk to Rita Guibert. / Guibert, Rita., 1973
Spanish
- Acoso y ocaso de una ciudad : La Habana de Alejo Carpentier y Guillermo Cabrera Infante / Yolanda Izquierdo., 2002
- Para leer Vista del amanecer en el trópico de Guillermo Cabrera Infante / Celina Manzoni., 1999
- El heraldo de las malas noticias : Guillermo Cabrera Infante : ensayo a dos voces / Jacobo Machover., 1996
- Cabrera Infante y otros escritores latinoamericanos / Ignacio Díaz Ruiz., 1992
- Guillermo Cabrera Infante : La Habana, el lenguaje y la cinematografía / Ernesto Gil López., 1985
- Discontinuidad y ruptura en Guillermo Cabrera Infante / Isabel Alvarez-Borland., 1982
- Guillermo Cabrera Infante / Rosa María Pereda., 1979
- Guillermo Cabrera Infante y Tres tristes tigres / Reynaldo L Jiménez., 1977
- Guillermo Cabrera Infante / Julián Ríos., 1974
- La nueva novela hispanoamericana y Tres tristes tigres / José Sánchez-Boudy., 1971
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.
- "Cuban-born novelist Guillermo Cabrera Infante dies", Associated PressAssociated PressThe Associated Press is an American news agency. The AP is a cooperative owned by its contributing newspapers, radio and television stations in the United States, which both contribute stories to the AP and use material written by its staff journalists...
obituary, on the site of The GuardianThe GuardianThe Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...
. Retrieved February 22, 2005.