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G. Cabrera Infante was born in Gibara in the province of Oriente, Cuba on April 22, 1929. He won a scholarship to the Havana School of Journalism and in 1952 was arrested and detained because a short story he published that contained English profanities. He became an opponent of the Batista regime and was forced to write under the pseudonym of G. Cain (which is an anagram of Cabrera and Infante). In 1954 he wrote a series of film critiques for the magazine Carteles and became the editor-in-chief in 1957. He founded the Cuban Cinematheque (1950-1956). In 1959 he became the director of the magazine Lunes, the literary supplement to Revolucion, until it was subsequently closed in 1961. The following year he traveled to Belgium as the cultural attaché to the embassy.

Infante left Cuba for good in 1966, settling ultimately in London. From his exile there, he continued his 40-year writing career, becoming one of the most vocal opponents against the Castro regime. He earned several prizes for his work, including the prestigious Cervantes Prize in 1997.

His work includes Asi en paz como en la Guerra (1960) that was published in London in 1993 as Writes of Passage; Un oficio del siglo XX (1963), a collection of film criticism was subsequently published as A Twentieth Century Job (1991); the acclaimed novel, Tres Tristes Tigres (1967) which appeared as Three Trapped Tigers; a collection of Cuban histories, Exorcismos del estilo and O (1975/76); a collection of lectures on film, Arcadia tos las noches that appeared in 1978 and the novel, Infante's Inferno, which was published in 1979.

Infante wrote his first English language book, Holy Smoke, in 1985. His political autobiography, Mea Cuba (1992) was voted one of the top ten books of the year by The New York Times. In addition to his literary work, Infante also worked as a screenwriter, most notably on Vanishing Point (1970) and The Lost City.

Infante died in London on February 21, 2005.