Alejo Carpentier (1904-1980) was one of the major Latin American writers of the twentieth century, as well as a classically trained pianist and musicologist. His best-known novels are
The Lost Steps,
Explosion in a Cathedral, and
The Kingdom of This World. Born in Lausanne, Switzerland, and raised in Havana, Cuba, Carpentier lived for many years in France and Venezuela before returning to Cuba after the 1959 revolution. A few years later he returned to France, where he lived until his death.
A tour de force ... built around the exciting and timely theme of revolutionary-turned-tyrantNot an ordinary historical novel, but rather a
poetic,
highly informed essay ...
in rich prose, a host of memorable impressions ... Splendidly writtenWhat does this novel have to tell us about colonialism, globalization, feminism, human rights, the rights of nature, transculturation, migration, war? ...
Explosion in a Cathedral continues to accompany us, to question us, to challenge and move us, and ultimately to help us in the arduous and terrible exercise of reading the worldOne of Latin America's greatest historical novels deals with the impact of the French Revolution on the Caribbean
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 desire for bloodshed. Landing at the Havana doorstep of three wealthy Creole adolescent orphans, he leads them across the Caribbean Sea to Guadeloupe, into the midst of the immense changes sweeping the world outside their life in Havana. As Victor's ideals begin to warp and change to fit shifting policies, the trio can no longer bear his betrayal of revolutionary ideas. What ensues in this magical realist masterpiece speaks to the frightening and corrupting allure of power.
