Call Number:

C0272

Repository:

Princeton University Library: Manuscripts Division

Extent:

• 19 boxes
• 7.5 linear feet

Language:

English

Preferred Citation:

Identification of specific item; Date (if known); Guillermo Cabrera Infante Papers, Box and Folder Number; Special Collections, Princeton University Library.

Date:

1962-1988 (inclusive)

Creator:

Cabrera Infante, G. (Guillermo), 1929-2005

Form:

Correspondence, Manuscripts., and Screenplays.

Abstract:

Consists of manuscripts and correspondence of the Cuban novelist and storywriter Guillermo Cabrera Infante (1929-2005). These papers contain published work and screenplays from 1964 through 1982, a manuscript of Three Trapped Tigers (1971), the English translation of Tres tristes tigres (1967), and film stills from Wonderwall (1968). Furthermore, the collection contains extensive correspondence between Cabrera Infante and literary agents, publishers, film producers, Latin American writers, and others.

Guillermo Cabrera Infante was born on April 22, 1929, in Gibara, Oriente Province, Cuba. His parents, Guillermo Cabrera López and Zoila Infante, founded the Cuban Communist Party and were routinely persecuted and discriminated against for their criticism of Fulgencio Batista. These early political experiences would influence Cabrera Infante's later politics and career. In 1941 the family moved from the coast to the Cuban capital in search of work opportunities.

Cabrera Infante attended the Universidad de la Havana to study medicine, but left shortly thereafter to write. His early literary activities involved editing the journal Bohemia, founding the magazine Nueva generación, and organizing and directing the Cinemateca de Cuba (1951-1956). In 1952 the Batista regime's censors found Cabrera Infante guilty of incorporating English obscenities in a short story that he wrote in Bohemia. As punishment, he was prohibited from publishing in his own name, although he quickly adopted the pseudonym G. Caín, a contraction of his surnames. On August 18, 1953, Cabrera Infante married Marta Calvo. The couple had two daughters, Ana and Carola, but then later divorced in October 1961.

Under the pseudonym G. Caín, Cabrera Infante wrote film reviews for Carteles (1954) and went on to become the magazine's chief editor (1957). He later assumed the directorship of the Instituto del Cine (1959) and edited Lunes de Revolución (1959-1961), the literary supplement of the pro-Fidel Castro newspaper Revolución. At the same time, Cabrera Infante published his first short story collection, Así en la paz como en la guerra (1960); in 1962 it was nominated for the Prix International de Literature (France). Cabrera Infante married his second wife, Miriam Gómez, a former Cuban stage star, on December 9, 1961.

After Lunes de Revolución was officially banned in 1961 as reprisal for editorial protest against government censorship, Cabrera Infante joined the diplomatic service and worked at the Cuban Embassy in Brussels, Belgium, as a cultural attaché (1962-1965). During this time abroad, he composed Un oficio del siglo veinte (1963), a collection of his film reviews written between 1954 and 1960.

The unpublished manuscript of Tres tristes tigres (1967) won the Biblioteca Breve award (Spain) in 1964, and was nominated for the Prix Formentor–International Publishers Prize in 1965. This novel, perhaps Cabrera Infante's best-known work, provides a vision of Havana nightlife before the revolution through the eyes of several friends. Beginning with the title, the text is full of alliteration, puns, and other wordplay, as well as Cuban colloquialisms. Cabrera Infante would continue this style of writing in his later works.

While in Brussels during the early 60s, Cabrera Infante's disenchantment with the Castro government grew, and finally culminated in 1965 when he resigned from the diplomatic corps and subsequently immigrated to England. There he began a new career writing screenplays (1967-1972), a vocation that combined his love of cinema and literature in a new form. From his home in London, Cabrera Infante continued to contribute to major European and American publications, as well as produce new works. He died in London on February 21, 2005.

The collection consists of at least one manuscript for each of Cabrera Infante's published works and screenplays from 1964 through 1982, including the novels La Habana para un Infante Difunto (1979) and Tres tristes tigres (1967); the essay collections Arcadia todas las noches (1978), Exorcismos del esti(l)o (1976), and O (1975); the vignette collection Vista del amanecer en el trópico (1974); and the screenplays Under the Volcano (1972), Vanishing Point (1970), and Wonderwall (1968). Also included is a manuscript of Three Trapped Tigers (1971), the English translation of Tres tristes tigres. The manuscripts for Cabrera Infante's early works, Así en la paz como en la guerra (1960) and Un oficio del siglo veinte (1963), are not included in the collection since they were not retained by the author.

There is also extensive correspondence between Cabrera Infante and literary agents, publishers, film producers, Latin American writers, and others. The letters consist of a variety of correspondents and cover a wide scope of topics. The Nestor Almendros correspondence includes frequent mention of progress in the Cuban cinematographer's various creative projects. One of the two Reinaldo Arenas letters is in regard to the unauthorized use of Arenas' and Cabrera Infante's respective works in an anthology of Cuban literature written after the revolution. The large amount of Julio Cortázar correspondence includes discussion about a screenplay Cabrera Infante wrote based on Cortázar's short story "La autopista del sur." These letters mostly concentrate on troubles in the film's production and the interest of others in adapting the story. The letters of Calvert Casey contain some written to Cabrera Infante, as well as letters by and to others. Joseph Losey's correspondence covers his direction of Cabrera Infante's film adaptation of the Malcolm Lowry novel Under the Volcano. The letters of both Virgilio Piñera and Manuel Puig with Cabrera Infante are predominately personal in nature. The correspondence of Emir Rodríguez Monegal is extensive and primarily personal; however it also contains letters relating to politics in literature and some discussion of the literary journal Mundo Nuevo from the period when Rodríguez Monegal was its editor. Manuel Scorza's letters are also mostly personal, but they occasionally address literary issues. Also among the open material are Cabrera Infante's letters (1976-1981) to Cuban poet and writer Juana Rosa Pita.