Who says I?: The self-creation of self-expression and the singular case of Guillermo Cabrera Infante

Abstract

This dissertation sets to explore three major concepts: the self, literary style and the author. This exploration is performed by finding out how the self of a person converges with the literary style of a writer so as to bring about, through this convergence, an author with which the reader converses. This conversation, and the way in which this convergence occurs, can be manageably brought about by having a study case. This study case is, in this dissertation, the literary work of the late and renowned Cuban writer Guillermo Cabrera Infante. It could be said that the investigation of these three concepts and the way in which they interact is framed within Cabrera Infante’s works. It could also be said that his work is framed in a conversation with his life, insomuch as this latter is approached as those conditions through which we can find any meaning in his work; for it is suggested that if his work is meaningful it is because there was a living person filling it with meaning, and thus with life. His life, it is said, informs his work and vice versa. The way in which the reader converses with this author is precisely by activating this meaning in his work, which thereby participates in informing the reader’s life and, as this dissertation aims to show, the reader’s work. The present dissertation is doubtless informed by Guillermo Cabrera Infante’s work and life; that is to say that it is informed by his style and, being this concomitant with the self, it is thus informed by his self. It is meant with “information” the constant exchange that inevitably occurs in a dialogue; for what this dissertation means to do is to create a dialogue from author to author, wherein the activities of reading and writing find in the text a common point of convergence.