SOURCE: A review of Mea Cuba, in New York Review of Books, Vol. XLII, No. 2, February 2, 1995, pp. 14-16.

In the following review, Reed chronicles Cabrera Infante's career, and praises him for "stand[ing quite obstinately apart" from "the literature of frustration" employed by other Cuban exiles.]

To be Cuban is to be born in Cuba. To be Cuban is to go with Cuba everywhere. To be Cuban is to carry Cuba like a persistent memory. We all carry Cuba within like an unheard music, like a rare vision that we know by heart. Cuba is a paradise from which we flee by trying to return.

In Mea Cuba, Guillermo Cabrera Infante gathers together all the separate writings on Cuba—articles, essays, memoirs, portraits, reflections, prepared talks—that he has produced since October 3, 1965, the day he left Cuba on a flight to Belgium (where he had been serving as...