Cabrera Infante, G(uillermo) 1929-2005

OBITUARY NOTICE—See index for CA sketch: Born April 22, 1929, in Gibara, Cuba; died of a blood infection February 21, 2005, in London, England. Writer. An author of fiction and nonfiction, Cabrera Infante was known as a clever wordsmith who used his language talents to both criticize the regime of Cuban dictator Fidel Castro and eulogize the world of pre-revolution Cuba. The son of the founders of Cuba's communist party, Guillermo Cabrera Lopez and Zoila Infante, it is not surprising that Cabrera Infante supported Castro's revolution in its early years. He graduated from the University of Havana in 1956 and was named director of Lunes de Revolucion, part of the government-run newspaper Revolucion. Cabrera Infante also taught English literature as a professor in Havana in the early 1960s. In 1962, he took a government job as cultural attaché at the Cuban embassy in Brussels; he was charge d'affairs there from 1964 to 1965. By the early 1960s, he had already built a reputation as a talented writer. He was nominated for the Prix International de Literature in 1962 for Así en paz como en la guerra, and in 1964 he earned Spain's Biblioteca Breve prize for what would become his best-known novel, Tres tristes tigres (1967), later translated as Three Trapped Tigers (1971). Although Castro's government did not censor the author's early work, it did censor a tell-all documentary his brother filmed about Cuba's revolution. When Carbera Infante protested, the government responded by forbidding him to write. By 1965, the author was in self-imposed exile in London, England, where he continued to write not only fiction, but also essays, film criticism, humor, screenplays, and erotica. A master of pun, metaphor, and political satire, he has sometimes been compared to such literary greats as James Joyce and Miguel de Cervantes. Some critics have noted, too, that the author could vary widely between overt, angry protest and pessimistic melancholia, a trait that has been traced back by some scholars to a nervous breakdown the author suffered in 1972. Among his many books are the film criticism collections Un oficio del siglo veinte (1963) and Arcadia todas los noches (1978), the novel La Habana para un infante difunto (1979), which was translated as Infante's Inferno (1984), the screenplay Vanishing Point (1970), and such nonfiction works as Mea Cuba (1992), Mi musica extremada (1996), and Infanteria (1999). Honored with the prestigious Cervantes prize in 1997, Cabrera Infante was widely recognized as an author whose writing style could be difficult but ultimately rewarding. A film adaptation of Tres tristes tigres had been completed at the time of his death, though lack of a distributor for the movie meant that it had not been screened by 2005. While the author was suffering from diabetes, as well as kidney and heart trouble, a broken hip led to Cabrera Infante's ultimately fatal blood infection.

OBITUARIES AND OTHER SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Chicago Tribune, February 23, 2005, section 3, p. 9.

Los Angeles Times, February 23, 2005, p. B7.

New York Times, February 23, 2005, p. C19.

Times (London, England), February 23, 2005, p. 62.

Washington Post, February 25, 2005, p. B7.