Mea Cuba

by Guillermo Cabrera Infante

Book Overview

"Quirky, unpredictable, often hilarious, Infante's book tells us much about the effect of the Cuban revolution on Cuban literature." - Publishers Weekly With bitter irony, the author tells a story sadly repeated during this century. A dictatorship that silences the intellectuals, a regime that lies and kills, and a propaganda war that has yet to end. One of the best compilations of documents on recent Cuban history.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0374524467
• ISBN13: 9780374524463
• Release Date: October 1995
• Publisher: Farrar, Strauss & Giroux-3pl
• Length: 520 Pages
• Weight: 1.60 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.4" x 6.0" x 8.9"

Customer Reviews

Mea cuba: excelente

En una prosa sencilla y amena, Cabrera Infante relata eventos de su vida en Cuba. Es una lectura necesaria para conocer la historia de Cuba de los últimos 50 años.

A must read for Castro apologists

This collection of essays and short pieces by Guillermo Cabrera Infante was not only educational to me (in the sense that it introduced me to many of Cuba's top writers, poets and artists), but also eye opening in the way in which it opened yet another mental file to store away the immense brutalities that Castro has caused upon all segments of the Cuban population. It is sad to read about the suicides of many of Castro's most heroic Revolutionary supporters (such as Yeye Santamaria), as well as broken poets and writers. Guillermo Cabrera Infante's books drives home, like a nail being pounded into a hand, the brutal and malignant nature of Fidel Castro, equally distributed among friends and foes alike. It is a must read for students of Cuban history from the viewpoint of an insider.

Mea Cuba or the World's Guilt

In this book Cabrera Infante takes us by the hand through the history of Cuba, past and present, in a masterful way. As a growing teenager in Cuba myself in the sixties, I can "see" again all that happened in the beautiful island-archipelago from a richer, most understandable perspective than when I was there and saw things take place, but did not fully understand them: The witchhunt against all intellectuals who dared "think" what was not sanctioned by the totalitarian state and its main disease: Castroenteritis ! The repression against "hippies", "Beatle Lovers", homosexuals, singers and anyone who could challenge the Caribbean Nazi-Stalinism. (It made me remember my "underground" listening to the Beatles!). An excellent, deep analysis of causes and consequences, of life in internal and external exile and very sharp chronicles about the lives of poets, writers, politicians and "men with many exes decorations", i.e. exminister, exambassador, exrevolutionary, experson, etc. Incredibly good use of the Spanish language, worthy of the prize Cabrera Infante recently earned: The Cervantes Prize of the Spanish language! I highly recommend this book for lovers of true history and of the Spanish language!

Castro no es Infante

El Autor de Tres Tristes Tigres nos ofrece una visión distinta del fenómeno Castro (un cubano que ama su patria y escribe contra su líder). Un libro que denuncia algunos de los atropellos que el "presidente" cubano perpetra contra los mismos cubanos. Una compilación de textos escritos a lo largo de los varios años que G.C.I. vive en su autoexilio, con la calidad y el humor al que nos tiene acostumbrados. La marca indeleble de Caín en el juego de palabras y en su estilo erudito, no se extrañan en Mea Cuba, una obra que expone los sentimientos más íntimos del autor frente a la Isla Caribeña que lo vió nacer. Aspectos de la Revolución (la mayúscula es de Guillermo)que se entrepapelaron en la historia, sus actores, el arte cubano y el pensamiento de Castro, vistos todos desde la ventana pineal de Cabrera Infante.