| Alejo Carpentier |
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Alejo Carpentier y Valmont ( December 26 , 1904 – April 24 , 1980 ) was a Cuba n novelist, essay writer, and musicologist who greatly influenced Latin American Literature during its famous "boom" Period . LIFE Early life and education Carpentier was born in Lausanne , Switzerland . For a long time it was believed that he was born in Havana where his family moved immediately before his birth, but following his death a birth certificate was found in Switzerland. His mother was a Russian professor of languages and his father was a French Architect . At 12, his family moved to Paris , where he began to study Music Theory at the lycee Jeanson de Sailly. When they returned to Cuba in the 1920s, he began a study of architecture which he never completed. He also studied music.''Colchie, Thomas (editor), A Hammock Beneath the Mangoes: stories from Latin America''; Penguin Group, 416-7 (1991). Cuba and exile in France Carpentier became a cultural journalist, writing mostly about avant-garde developments in the arts, particularly music. Together with the composer Amadeo Roldán , he helped organize the Cuban premieres of works by Stravinsky and Poulenc . 1927, Carpentier was arrested for opposing the Gerardo Machado Y Morales dictatorship and spent forty days in jail. It is during this brief period in jail when he started working on his first novel, ''Ecué-Yamba-O'' (1933), an exploration of Afro-Cuban traditions among the poor of the island, which he later disavowed for being superficial. He was released in early 1928. After his release, he escaped Cuba with the help of poet journalist Robert Desnos who had lent him his passport and papers. While exiled in France, Carpentier was introduced to the surrealists by Desnos, including André Breton , Paul Eluard , Louis Aragon , Jacques Prévert , and Antonin Artaud . He also met Guatemalan author Miguel Angel Asturias , whose work on pre-Columbian mythology influenced his writing. He continued to earn his living writing, both in French and Spanish, on contemporary culture, as well as contributing to the Communist Party journal. While in France, he made several visits to Spain, during which he developed a fascination for the Baroque. In 1937 (during the Spanish Civil War) he attended an international conference in Madrid of writers against fascism. Return to Cuba and years in Venezuela Carpentier returned to Cuba and continued to work as a Journalist at the outbreak of World War II . He also began research on a book published in 1946 as ''La musica in Cuba''. He also wrote stories which were later collected in ''The War of Time'' (1958). While in Cuba, Carpentier also attended a Voodoo ceremony that was to develop his interest in Afro-Cubanism. In 1943, Carpentier, accompanied by French theatrical director Louis Jouvet , made a crucial trip to Haiti , during which he visited the fortress of the Citadelle La Ferriere and the Palace of Sans-Souci, both built by the black king Henri Christophe . This trip, along with readings from Oswald Spengler 's cyclical interpretation of history, provided the inspiration for his second novel, '' The Kingdom Of This World '' (1949). In 1945, Carpentier moved to Caracas. From 1945 to 1959 he lived in Venezuela , which is the obvious inspiration for the unnamed South American country in which much of ''The Lost Steps'' is set. In 1949, he finishes his novel ''The Kingdom of this World''. This novel has a prologue that "outlines Carpentier's faith in the destiny of Latin America and the aesthetic implications of its peculiar cultural heritage." Later life He returned to Cuba after the Fidel Castro 's victorious revolution in 1959. He worked for the State Publishing House while he completed the baroque-style book, ''Explosion in a Cathedral'' (1962)." This novel discusses the advent of the Enlightenment and the ideas of the French Revolution in the New World. It has twin Leitmotifs of the printing press and the Guillotine and can be read as a "meditation on the dangers inherent in all revolutions as they begin to confront the temptations of dictatorship.". After reading the book Gabriel García Márquez is said to have discarded the first draft of One Hundred Years Of Solitude and begun again from scratch. In 1966, he settled in Paris as he served as Cuban ambassador to France. In 1975 he was the recipient of the Prix Mondial Cino Del Duca . He received the Cervantes Prize in 1977 and the French Prix Médicis in 1979. Carpentier was struggling with cancer as he completed his final novel and he died in Paris on April 24 , 1980 . His remains were returned to Cuba for interment in the Colon Cemetery, Havana . THEMES AND FAMOUS WORKS Widely known for his baroque style of writing and his theory of "lo Real Maravilloso," his most famous works include:
It was in the prologue to ''The Kingdom of this World'', a novel of the . QUOTES
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