SOURCE: "Identity and Authenticity in Alejo Carpentier's Reasons of State," in Imagination, Emblems and Expressions: Essays on Latin American, Caribbean, and Continental Culture and Identity, edited by Helen Ryan-Ranson, Bowling Green State University Popular Press, 1993, pp. 75-87.

In the following essay, Stewart traces the dictator's struggle with identity in Carpentier's Reasons of State.

Ostensibly Alejo Carpentier's 1974 novel, Reasons of State, concerns itself with the political and military problems and actions of a mythical Latin American dictator who chooses to live in Paris as much as possible. The Head of State, as we know him, embodies nearly absolute power, as near as might be supposed possible in one man. Unsurprisingly political and military activities comprise the assertion of power and authority in this novel and also provide the series of events which propels the narrative forward. Nonetheless, these activities do not define and shape the novel's primary theme of...