Urban Space and Memory Space in Guillermo Cabrera Infante’s Fiction

Abstract

Abstract Guillermo Cabrera Infante’s masterpiece Three Trapped Tigers (1965) ignores all details of traditional chronology and should be interpreted as an exquisite artistic form of Latin American “neo-baroque” which characterizes its Cuban author’s style. Havana, the capital and the center of interest within this book, thus becomes an intricate labyrinth which expresses the complexity of human life in a given political and social context, but also illustrates the textual choice of a unique writer determined to ignore all previous patterns of literary representation and expression. The metaphor of “the lost city” goes through the text and influences all the characters’ choices and attitudes (including sometimes their self-imposed exile), expressing the quintessence of a way of life that would completely disappear after the Cuban Revolution.