Wit and wile with Guillermo Cabrera Infante.

• Author: Levine, Suzanne Jill
• Position: Interview with Cuban-born writer - Interview

A MASTER OF WORDPLAY, THIS INTRIGUING CUBAN-BORN WRITER REFLECTS ON HIS TRICKS OF THE TRADE

GUILLERMO CABRERA INFANTE IS RECOGNIZED AS ONE OF THE MOST INVENTIVE OF SPANISH-LANGUAGE WRITERS IN THIS CENTURY. THE AUTHOR OF NOVELS, STORIES, ESSAYS, AND SCREENPLAYS, HE WAS BORN IN GIBARA, CUBA, IN 1929 AND BEGAN PUBLISHING HIS FIRST STORIES AND MOVIE REVIEWS AT THE AGE OF NINETEEN. IN 1965, WHILE CULTURAL ATTACHE WITH THE CUBAN EMBASSY IN BRUSSELS, HE RETURNED BRIEFLY TO CUBA FOR HIS MOTHER'S FUNERAL AND DECIDED THEN TO LEAVE HIS HOMELAND FOR GOOD. HE AND HIS WIFE, MIRIAM GOMEZ, HAVE RESIDED IN LONDON SINCE THAT TIME - GIVING RISE TO THE AUTHOR'S CLAIM TO BE "THE ONLY ENGLISH WRITER WHO WRITES IN SPANISH." HIS BOOKS PUBLISHED IN ENGLISH INCLUDE THREE TRAPPED TIGERS, HOLY SMOKE, A TWENTIETH-CENTURY JOB, INFANTE'S INFERNO, WRITES OF PASSAGE, AND A VIEW OF DAWN IN THE TROPICS. CABRERA INFANTE'S MOST RECENT WORK, MEA CUBA, IS HIS HUMOROUS AND VERY OPINIONATED MEMOIR OF A RICH ARTISTIC AND POLITICAL LIFE - A COLLECTION OF ESSAYS, ARTICLES, PORTRAITS, AND RECOLLECTIONS WRITTEN OVER HIS THIRTY YEARS IN EXILE. ALASTAIR REID, IN HIS REVIEW PUBLISHED LAST FEBRUARY IN THE NEW YORK REVIEW OF BOOKS, REMARKED THAT "CABRERA INFANTE HAS BY NOW EARNED FOR HIMSELF AN UNUSUAL POSITION, THAT OF A SMALL AND FEROCIOUSLY INDEPENDENT OUTCLAVE OF CUBA, SOMETHING OF A CONSCIENCE TO CUBANS, PARTICULARLY THOSE IN EXILE."

CABRERA INFANTE'S FIRST BOOK PUBLISHED IN ENGLISH, THREE TRAPPED TIGERS, APPEARED IN 1971; IT WAS ALSO HIS FIRST WORK TO BE TRANSLATED BY SUZANNE JILL LEVINE. THEIR TEXTUAL COLLABORATION, WHICH THE EVER-CREATIVE CABRERA INFANTE HAS TERMED A "CLOSELABORATION," ALSO INCLUDES INFANTE'S INFERNO AND A VIEW OF DAWN IN THE TROPICS.

LAST MARCH, WHILE HE WAS IN MIAMI, A GUEST OF THE MIAMI FILM FESTIVAL, CABRERA INFANTE AND LEVINE MET, AT THE REQUEST OF AMERICAS MAGAZINE, TO DISCUSS THE MANY ASPECTS AND INFLUENCES OF HIS WRITING LIFE.

SJL: In your latest book, Mea Cuba (Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 1994), a collection of your essays on Cuba from 1968 until the present day, you speak about the exile of another Cuban, the great poet and patriot Jose Marti, who fought and died for Cuban independence at the turn of the last century. You have produced most of your important work in exile, like Marti, as well as like James Joyce and Vladimir Nabokov, writers with whom you are often compared. Would you say that when you state "Marti's martyrdom was his exile, and his exile was his success," you are also, in some way, reflecting on your own destiny as a writer?

GCI: A few years ago there was in Washington a conference of Cuban writers in exile. I was reluctant to attend: I am always a reluctant conferee. One of the organizers (a man whose claim to fame is that he installed a television aerial on top of the tallest tower in the world, the Sears Building in Chicago) called me on the phone in Charlottesville. I was at the time teaching a semester on Cuban literature in exile at the University of Virginia. The gentleman caller, who must remain anonymous because he was, in fact, anonymous, said to me: "You should know that I'm doing this for Cuba" and I answered, "I'll do it for Havana;" he thought I was joking. I don't know why people think I'm joking when I'm utterly serious. Anyway, I went to this conference not for Cuba but for Havana. Cuba barely exists for me and if it does it is like the oyster with a pearl within: Cuba contains Havana as a precious growth inside. Havana is my vademecum not Cuba. I don't take a map of the city with me because everywhere I go I have Havana on my mind. All my writings, including View of Dawn in the Tropics, are visions of Havana. My contention is that by remembering I can rebuild Havana, brick by word, word by word, all guided by my memory. But my memory belongs to Havana and at the same time I can tell her, thanks for the memory. Nostalgia is never neuralgia for me. I use nostalgia to form and inform what I write. She is actually the whore of memory but I've married her the way some people marry money. Call me Mr. Memory.

Exile is success, yes. The phrase sounds better in Spanish, "El exilio es el exito." Oscar Wilde, a writer first talked about in Spanish by Marti, an exile, on the occasion of his visit to New York, said: "Nothing succeeds like success." Exiledom (see under Miami) is success not only for Cuban businessmen but also for every exile who now, no matter how poor, is rich compared to their compatriots left behind on Devil's Island. But this is true not only of the exiles from Castro - they were equally successful in the last century. Exile began for Cubans...