SOURCE: "Indetermination in Alejo Carpentier's El derecho de asilo," in Kentucky Romance Quarterly, Vol. 28, No. 4, 1981, pp. 383-90.

In the following essay, Mason studies the thematic links between time, place, and fragmented narration in "Right of Sanctuary," showing the significance of the story's indeterminacy.

Although the theme of time in Alejo Carpentier's novels and short stories has been the subject of a number of critical works,¹ little attention has so far been paid to the treatment of time in the short story "El derecho de asilo," which first appeared in 1967, in the French version of Guerra del tiempo. In this paper, I will examine the view of time presented in this story. It will be shown that a thematic connection exists between the treatment of time presented here and other structural elements of the story, in particular, the imprecise geographical location, and the fragmentation of the role of the...