CABRERA INFANTE, GUILLERMO

born April 22, 1929, Gibara, Cuba Cuban film critic, short-story writer, diplomat, and novelist who wrote the brilliant novel Tres Tristes Tigres (1967; Three Sad Tigers; Eng. trans. Three Trapped Tigers). In 1947 Cabrera began his association with Bohemia, a leading Cuban popular magazine. The following year he edited the magazine Nueva Generacin and became the literary editor of Bohemia. He supported the revolutionary forces of Fidel Castro in 1958 and wrote against the regime of Fulgencio Batista. After the revolution he was named director of the Cuban Department of Culture. His first major publication was a collection of short stories, As en la paz como en la guerra (1960; In Peace as in War), written during the 1950s, which revealed his revolutionary spirit. The collection appeared simultaneously in French, Italian, and Polish translations in the 1960s. As Castro embraced socialism and Marxism, Cabrera became disenchanted with the revolution. After several confrontations with the authorities, he was sent to Belgium in 1962 to serve as cultural attach at the Cuban embassy. He left that post in 1965 and subsequently settled in London and became a British subject. Tres Tristes Tigres is full of puns, neologisms, and humorous word play. Set in the summer of 1958, the story is an account of the end of the chaotic era of Batista. Vista del amanecer en el trpico (1974; View of Dawn in the Tropics) is a collection of vignettes of Cuban history from the island's discovery to the present. The following year Cabrera published O (1975), a collection of essays and articles that treat with irony and satire various aspects of contemporary life. In Exorcismos de esti(l)o (1976; Exorcisms of Style, or, omitting the parenthetical l, of Summer), a series of short sketches, poems, and aphorisms, the modern world is again viewed in a satirical light. Arcadia todas las noches (1978; Arcadia Every Night) is a collection of Cabrera's critical writings on motion pictures. In 1979 he published the parody La Habana para un infante difunto (Havana for a Dead Prince; Eng. trans. Infante's Inferno). Holy Smoke, his first book written in English, was published in 1985.