Well, I write in exile because I cannot return to my country, so I have no choice but to see myself as an exiled writer.
Interpretation
The quote reflects the experience of being an outsider and the unique perspective it offers to a writer.
Guillermo Cabrera Infante's quote illustrates the struggle of a writer who is physically separated from their homeland, suggesting that this exile profoundly shapes their identity and creative expression. It implies that distance from one's cultural roots can lead to an enriched, albeit painful, experience of artistry, where the writer must navigate their identity through the lens of longing and separation.
In practice
In a literary event discussing the impact of exile on creativity.
Suddenly Yankel was overcome with a fear of dying, stronger than he felt when his parents passed of natural causes, stronger than when his only brother was killed in the flour mill or when his children died, stronger even than when he was a child and it first occurred to him that he must try to understand what it could mean not to be alive -- to be not in darkness, not in unfeeling -- to be not being, not to be.
In war, the moral is to the physical as three is to one.
The proclamation of the Gospel is destined primarily to the poor, to those who often lack the essentials for a decent life. The good news is first announced to them, that God loves them before all others and comes to visit them through the acts of charity that the disciples of Christ carry out in his name.
Afghan people are just so tired of war.
Capitalism cannot reform itself; it is doomed to self-destruction.
...if there is a widely shared concept of intentional action... a philosophical analysis of intentional action that is wholly unconstrained by that concept runs the risk of having nothing more than a philosophical fiction as its subject matter.
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