The Modern Novel

Biography

Alejo Carpentier was born in Havana in 1904 of a French father and Russian mother. As a child he travelled to Paris and also studied music. Back in Havana, he started studying architecture but soon gave it up and started writing for various newspapers. He became associated with various left-wing causes and travelled to Mexico where he met Diego Rivera. He was sent to a prison as a communist, where he wrote the first draft of his first novel, ¡Ecue-Yamba-O! and organized concerts of new music (Stravinsky, Poulenc, etc.) With the help of Robert Desnos, he left Cuba and moved to France. While in France, he became very much involved with the Surrealists and knew most of the major experimental writers, artists and musicians. His novel, ¡Ecue-Yamba-O!, was published in Madrid in 1934 and, while in Madrid, he made the acquaintance of Federico Garcia Lorca and other Spanish writers and artists.

In 1939 he returned to Cuba where he was involved in literary journalism and musicology. He travelled throughout the region and a 1944 trip to Haiti led to the novel El reino de este mundo (The Kingdom of this World). In 1945 he moved to Venezuela, returning to Cuba only after the Revolution. Back in Cuba, he was very involved in cultural affairs – teaching, cultural commissions, publisher, official Cuban representative – as well as writing (novels, journalism, librettos, radio screenplays and poetry). His novels are known for their use of magic realism and for using the background of the history and culture of Latin America. He died in 1980.

Books about Alejo Carpentier

Donald Leslie Shaw:. Alejo Carpentier
Bobs M. Tusa: Alejo Carpentier, a Comprehensive Study

Other Links

Alejo Carpentier a guide to his greatest works
Alejo Carpentier
Alejo Carpentier (in Spanish)
Alejo Carpentier (in Spanish)
Sr. Alejo Carpentier Balmont (in Spanish)