by Alejo Carpentier

Alejo Carpentier was born in Havana, Cuba, in 1904, two years after his mother, a Russian pianist and language teacher, and his father, an architect from France, immigrated to Cuba. He received his secondary education in France, and then returned to Cuba to study architecture in Havana. When his father abandoned the family, Carpentier left architecture school and worked as a journalist to support them. Through his work, he traveled widely and became increasingly engaged in anti-imperialist and anti-fascist struggles in the Caribbean and in Europe. He lived for many years in France, Cuba, and Venezuela, returning to Cuba after the 1959 revolution. He published many essays, short stories, poems, and articles, but is perhaps best known for his novels Music in Cuba (1946) and The Kingdom of this World (1949). The Kingdom of This World is remarkable for its introduction...