Explosion in a Cathedral

Set in Cuba at the time of the French Revolution, this novel aims to capture the immense changes sweeping the Caribbean at the turn of the 19th century - complete with its wars, sea-life and people. The author - who was amongst the first to use "magic realism" - has also written "The Chase".

Literature & Fiction

CARPENTIER, ALEJO

Sturrock, John (trans

Literary

Noonday Press

El reino de este mundo, novela pionera del realismo mágico, explora los orígenes de la independencia haitiana, en una América donde lo mágico es cotidiano y real 
Inspirado por la extraordinaria historia original y valido de su admirable poder narrativo, Alejo Carpentier es artífice de un relato alucinante e incomparable que recrea los acontecimientos que precedieron a la independencia haitiana en la corte real de Henri Christophe. 
A través de los ojos de un esclavo, el lector se introduce en la fascinante atmósfera de una Haití en busca de independencia, un mundo de pasiones que se desenvuelven en medio de la feroz caricatura de los extraordinarios lujos de la corte bonapartista; una corte construida con elementos casi salvajes de una isla antillana en la que la tiranía cambia brutalmente de nombre y la esclavitud se perpetúa bajo la opresiva monarquía de Christophe.
Carpentier pinta un mundo barroco en el que los ecos del tamtam repercuten en el latón de los uniformes y en las borlas de las bordadas mitras de fingidos obispos. Una tierra que se vuelca al Vudú en medio del auge y la caída del primer poder negro en América, y el impacto e influencia de la Revolución Francesa en las Antillas.

El reino de este mundo (Esenciales/ Essential)

United States

Rayo

A biographical novel of Victor Hugues' change from entrepreneur to revolutionary presents a detailed picture of Caribbean life during the French Revolution

Explosion in a Cathedral (Modern Classics)

Penguin Books, Ltd.

A composer, fleeing an empty existence in New York City, takes a journey with his mistress to one of the few remaining areas of the world not yet touched by civilization—the upper reaches of a great South American river—in this "novel of remarkable beauty, intellectual worth, absorbing interest, and genuine originality" —The Saturday Review (London)

Los pasos perdidos

Humor & Satire

Penguin??Books

One of Cuba's-and Latin America's-greatest historical novels, about imperial conquest carried out under the guise of liberation, in its first new English translation in sixty years and featuring a new foreword by Alejandro Zambra A Penguin Classic When he arrives in Cuba at the close of the eighteenth century, Victor Hugues, a merchant sailor from Marseille, brings with him not only the idealism of the French Revolution but also its ambition and bloodlust. Landing at the Havana doorstep of a trio of wealthy, eccentric Creole orphans, he sweeps them across the Caribbean Sea to Guadeloupe, whose enslaved Africans he frees only then to exploit them in his fight against the British for colonial sovereignty. What ensues in Alejo Carpentier's swashbuckling, magical realist masterpiece is an explosive clash between the New World and the Old World, and between revolutionary ideals and the corrupting allure of power.

Explosion in a Cathedral (Penguin Classics)

Penguin Classics

The best-known book by Cuba's most important twentieth-century novelist, in its first new English translation in more than sixty years and featuring a new introduction by Leonardo Padura A Penguin Classic Dissatisfied with his empty, Sisyphus-like existence in New York City, where he has abandoned his creative dreams for a job in corporate advertising, a highly cultured aspiring composer wants nothing more than to tear his life up from the root. He soon finds his escape hatch: a university-sponsored mission to South America to look for indigenous musical instruments in one of the few areas of the world not yet touched by civilization. Retracing the steps of time, he voyages with his lover into a land that feels outside of history, searching not just for music but ultimately for himself, and turning away from modernity toward the very heart of what makes us human.

The Lost Steps

A novel which describes the last few hours in the life of an unnamed young man who is on the run in Havana during the violent tyranny of Batista. The author - who was amongst the first to use "magic realism" - has also written "Explosion in a Cathedral" and "The Lost Steps".

Chase

World Literature

Farrar. Straus & Giroux

El siglo de las luces (Spanish Edition)

Planeta-Agostini. Barcelona. 1985. 19 cm. 364 p. Encuadernación en tapa blanda de editorial. Carpentier, Alejo 1904-1980 .. Este libro es de segunda mano y tiene o puede tener marcas y señales de su anterior propietario. Cubierta deslucida. ISBN: 84-7551-384-0

El Siglo De Las Luces (Spanish Edition)

French & European Pubns

A few years after its liberation from French colonialist rule, Haiti experienced a period of unsurpassed brutality, horror, and superstition under the reign of the black King Henri-Christophe. Through the eyes of the ancient slave Ti-Noel, The Kingdom of This World records the destruction of the black regime--built on the same corruption and contempt for human life that brought down the French--in an orgy of voodoo, race hatred, erotomania, and fantastic grandeurs of false elegance.

The Kingdom of This World: A Novel

Contemporary

Farrar. Straus and Giroux