Guide to magical realism

Reading lists

A guide to magical realism

The Lost Steps

A vivid and inspiring adventure story from the father of magical realism 
 
Dissatisfied with his empty, Sisyphus-like existence in New York City, where he has abandoned his creative dreams for a job in corporate advertising, an 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 safely untouched by the industrial world. 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 towards the very heart of what makes us human.

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.

Dissatisfied with his empty, Sisyphus-like existence in New York City, where he has abandoned his creative dreams for a job in corporate advertising, an 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 safely untouched by the industrial world. 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 towards the very heart of what makes us human.

Alejo Carpentier

Adrian Nathan West

Alejandro Zambra

A tour de force ... built around the exciting and timely theme of revolutionary-turned-tyrant

Not an ordinary historical novel, but rather a poetic, highly informed essay ... in rich prose, a host of memorable impressions ... Splendidly written

What 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 world

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.

Alejo Carpentier

Praise for Explosion in a Cathedral

A tour de force ... built around the exciting and timely theme of revolutionary-turned-tyrant

Not an ordinary historical novel, but rather a poetic, highly informed essay ... in rich prose, a host of memorable impressions ... Splendidly written

What 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 ...

A tour de force ... built around the exciting and timely theme of revolutionary-turned-tyrant

Not an ordinary historical novel, but rather a poetic, highly informed essay ... in rich prose, a host of memorable impressions ... Splendidly written

What 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 ...

A tour de force ... built around the exciting and timely theme of revolutionary-turned-tyrant

Not an ordinary historical novel, but rather a poetic, highly informed essay ... in rich prose, a host of memorable impressions ... Splendidly written

What 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 ...

Books by Alejo Carpentier

Articles featuring Alejo Carpentier

A guide to magical realism

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