"Titles are not only important, they are essential for me. I cannot write without a title"
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A title, for Guillermo Cabrera Infante, isn’t the label you slap on after the hard work. It’s the ignition switch. Coming from a novelist whose best-known work (Tres tristes tigres) is basically a carnival of sound - puns, slang, verbal riffing, linguistic sabotage - the claim reads less like a quirky preference and more like a manifesto: the book begins as a phrase, a rhythm, a dare.
The subtext is control. Cabrera Infante writes in a century where politics, censorship, and exile constantly rename you against your will. A Cuban writer pushed out by the Revolution, he learned that words don’t just describe reality; they police it. Insisting on the title first is a way of staking territory before anyone else can. He’s choosing the frame, the lens, the tone of voice that will govern what follows.
It also signals a craftsman’s suspicion of the so-called blank page. “I cannot write without a title” sounds like dependency, but it’s really a method: the title becomes a constraint that generates invention. In his work, language doesn’t march; it improvises. A good title functions like a chord progression for a jazz solo - it sets key, tempo, and the promise of what kind of pleasures (and traps) are coming.
There’s wit in the absolutism, too. “Essential for me” is both confession and provocation: if you think titles are marketing, you’re reading the wrong writer. For Cabrera Infante, the title is already literature. The rest is the echo.
The subtext is control. Cabrera Infante writes in a century where politics, censorship, and exile constantly rename you against your will. A Cuban writer pushed out by the Revolution, he learned that words don’t just describe reality; they police it. Insisting on the title first is a way of staking territory before anyone else can. He’s choosing the frame, the lens, the tone of voice that will govern what follows.
It also signals a craftsman’s suspicion of the so-called blank page. “I cannot write without a title” sounds like dependency, but it’s really a method: the title becomes a constraint that generates invention. In his work, language doesn’t march; it improvises. A good title functions like a chord progression for a jazz solo - it sets key, tempo, and the promise of what kind of pleasures (and traps) are coming.
There’s wit in the absolutism, too. “Essential for me” is both confession and provocation: if you think titles are marketing, you’re reading the wrong writer. For Cabrera Infante, the title is already literature. The rest is the echo.
Quote Details
| Topic | Writing |
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