Alejo Carpentier Books In Order

Novels

  1. The Kindgom of This World (1949)
  2. The Lost Steps (1953)
  3. The Chase (1956)
  4. Explosion in a Cathedral (1963)
  5. Baroque Concerto (1974)
  6. Reasons of State (1976)
  7. The Harp and the Shadow (1978)

Collections

  1. War of Time (1958)

Non fiction

  1. Music in Cuba (2001)

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Alejo Carpentier Books Overview

The Kindgom of This World

A few years after its liberation from the brutality of French colonial rule in 1803, Haiti endured a period of even greater brutality under the reign of King Henri Christophe, who was born a slave in Grenada but rose to become the first black king in the Western Hemisphere. In prose of often dreamlike coloration and intensity, Alejo Carpentier records the destruction of the black regime built on the same corruption and contempt for human life that brought down the French while embodying the same hollow grandeur of false elegance, attained only through slave labor in an orgy of voodoo, race hatred, madness, and erotomania.

The Lost Steps

Fiction Introduction by Timothy Brennan Translated into twenty languages and published in more than fourteen Spanish editions, The Lost Steps, originally published in 1953, is Alejo Carpentier’s most heralded novel. 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. The Lost Steps describes his search, his adventures, and the remarkable decision he makes in a village that seems to be truly outside history. ‘An erudite yet absorbing adventure story…
A book full of riches stylistic, sensory, visual.’ New York Times Book Review ‘The greatest novel to have appeared in Latin America in our time.’ Le Figaro Litt raire ‘Extraordinary.’ The New Yorker Perhaps Cuba’s most important intellectual figure of the twentieth century, Alejo Carpentier 1904 1980 was a novelist, a classically trained pianist and musicologist, a producer of avant garde radio programming, and an influential theorist of politics and literature. Best known for his novels, Carpentier also collaborated with such luminaries as Igor Stravinsky, Darius Milhaud, Georges Bataille, and Antonin Artaud. Born in Havana, he lived for many years in France and Venezuela but returned to Cuba after the 1959 revolution.

The Chase

Fiction Introduction by Timothy Brennan Three works of fiction by the inventor of magic realism now back in print! ‘In a nameless, Havana like city, an anonymous man flees a team of shadowy, relentless political assassins, and ultimately takes refuge in a symphony auditorium during a performance of Beethoven’s Eroica…
. This nightmarish novel does not so much tell a story as map the secret political infrastructure of cities, governments, churches, music, and bodies.’ The Independent ‘Carpentier was one of the early giants of modern Latin American literature, a man whose writing helped shape and define the period of ‘magic realism.’…
The Chase is a masterpiece.’ New York Times Book Review ‘A taut tale of political violence and psychological suspense.’ San Francisco Chronicle ‘One of the few perfect novellas in Spanish.’ G. Cabrera Infante Perhaps Cuba’s most important intellectual figure of the twentieth century, Alejo Carpentier 1904 1980 was a novelist, a classically trained pianist and musicologist, a producer of avant garde radio programming, and an influential theorist of politics and literature. Best known for his novels, Carpentier also collaborated with such luminaries as Igor Stravinsky, Darius Milhaud, Georges Bataille, and Antonin Artaud. Born in Havana, he lived for many years in France and Venezuela but returned to Cuba after the 1959 revolution.

Explosion in a Cathedral

Fiction Introduction by Timothy Brennan A swashbuckling tale set in the the Caribbean world at the time of the French revolution, Explosion in a Cathedral focuses on Victor Hugues, a historical figure who led the naval assault to take back the island of Guadeloupe from the English at the beginning of the nineteenth century. In Carpentier’s telling, this piratical figure walks into the lives of the wealthy orphans Esteban and Sofia and casts them abruptly into the midst of the immense changes sweeping the world outside their Havana mansion. ‘Built around the exciting and timely theme of revolutionary turned tyrant,…
Explosion in a Cathedral is a tour de force.’ New York Times Book Review ‘Woven into the story is a complete history and geography of the Caribbean.’ Times Literary Supplement Perhaps Cuba’s most important intellectual figure of the twentieth century, Alejo Carpentier 1904 1980 was a novelist, a classically trained pianist and musicologist, a producer of avant garde radio programming, and an influential theorist of politics and literature. Best known for his novels, Carpentier also collaborated with such luminaries as Igor Stravinsky, Darius Milhaud, Georges Bataille, and Antonin Artaud. Born in Havana, he lived for many years in France and Venezuela but returned to Cuba after the 1959 revolution.

The Harp and the Shadow

‘An extraordinary display of historical inquisitiveness and stylistic maturity.’ The New York Times Book Review Exploring the consequences of the European discovery of the Americas and challenging the myth of Columbus, Alejo Carpentier ‘the father of magical realism’ studies the first meetings of the Western and American cultures and the tragic consequences of tarnished and abandoned idealism. Alejo Carpentier 1904 1980 is considered one of the fathers of modern Latin American literature. He lived in Cuba, France, and Venezuela. Thomas Christensen and Carol Christensen have translated the works of Julio Cort zar, Laura Esquivel, and Carlos Fuentes.

Music in Cuba

A publishing event: the first English translation of Carpentier’s pioneering book on Cuban music.

In the wake of the Buena Vista Social Club, the world has rediscovered the rich musical tradition of Cuba. A unique combination of popular and elite influences, the music of this island nation has fascinated since the golden age of the son that New World aural collision of Africa and Europe that made Cuban music the rage in Paris, New York, and Mexico beginning in the 1920s.

Originally published in 1946 and never before available in an English translation, Music in Cuba is not only the best and most extensive study of Cuban musical history, it is a work of literature in its own right. Drawing on such primary documents as obscure church circulars, dog eared musical scores pulled from attics, and the records of the Spanish colonial authorities, Music in Cuba sweeps panoramically from the sixteenth into the twentieth century. Carpentier covers European style elite Cuban music as well as the popular rural Spanish folk and urban Afro Cuban music.

In a substantial introduction based on extensive original research, Timothy Brennan explores Carpentier’s career prior to the writing of his novels. Looking especially at Carpentier’s work as a music reviewer, radio producer, and musical theorist, Brennan suggests new ways of thinking about the role of Latin American artists in Europe between the wars and about the central place of radio and music club cultures in the European avant gardes.

Perhaps Cuba’s most important intellectual of the twentieth century, Alejo Carpentier 19041980 was a novelist, a classically trained pianist and musicologist, a producer of avant garde radio programming, and an influential theorist of politics and literature. Best known for his novels, Carpentier also collaborated with such luminaries as Igor Stravinsky, Darius Milhaud, Georges Bataille, and Antonin Artaud. Born in Havana, he lived for many years in France and Venezuela but returned to Cuba after the 1959 revolution.

Timothy Brennan is professor of cultural studies, comparative literature, and English at the University of Minnesota.

Alan West Dur n is a freelance translator living in Massachusetts.

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