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Associated with German post-expressionism, new objectivity, French surrealism and dadaism, magic realism is regarded as an ontological scandal, a violation of the logic of identity through the invention of a third level of reality. The name was coined by a German critic and art historian, Franz Roh, in his book “Nach-Expressionismus. Magischer Realismus. Probleme der neuesten europäischen Malerei”, published in 1925, and employed again in Foto-Auge, a book on the new phtography jointly published by Roph with Jan Tschichold which served as a catalogue for the avant-garde “Film und Foto” exhibition (FiFo) held in Stuttgart between May and June 1929. By then, however, Roh’s essay had already been translated into Italian and Spanish and promoted by prominent thinkers of the day, such as Jose Ortega y Gasset, who published it in the influential “Revista de Occidente” in Madrid in 1927, and by Massimo Bonterupelli, who translated it for the Italian journal, “900” ['Novecento']. The prompt and resonant international echo generated by Roh’s new art can hardly be understood otherwise than on the assumption that it was striking a familiar ring in the rapidly changing and polyphonous score of European modernism. Reputed for its international and heterogeneous character, modernism is thus revealed to have been crossed by some common currents of poetic matter and energy. The present essay sets out to dig up the roots of a hybrid, literary and plastic artistic mode in the earlier half of the last century, and to identify legacies in the aftermath of Roh’s celebrated manifesto.

Cuban painter Wifredo Lam (1909-1982) returned to the Caribbean in 1941 after spending eighteen years in Spain and France. In the following four years his painting practice transformed, generating the iconic imagery that he would become known for inventing. His return from Europe figures prominently in essays that Lydia Cabrera, Alejo Carpentier, and Aimé Césaire wrote about him soon after his 1943 completion of La jungla, his most famous painting. These Caribbean writers had close relationships of friendship and collaboration with Lam, and while their essays have become important sources for Lam criticism, they rarely receive critical analysis. In my analysis, I am interested in how they illuminate the role of return in shaping the dichotomy that Alejo Carpentier went on to establish between surrealism and the Americas-located aesthetic he dubbed “lo real maravilloso.” For Carpentier, the aesthetic of the marvelous that the surrealists sought to render emanated readily from social reality in the Americas. I understand this idea to be predicated upon his own return from Europe, and I argue that his earlier work on Lam, alongside Cabrera’s and Césaire’s, offers coordinates for a theory of return, from Europe and surrealism, through which to understand the real-marvelous aesthetic in Lam.

Archivo histórico de Kipus: Revista Andina de Letras y Estudios Culturales, 1995 y 1996.

During the period of Caribbean decolonization (1950–65), a subset of Caribbean authors reimagined the temporal role of the continental Caribbean's tropical interior: rather than a space outside history that colonists or residents could use as a resource to construct historical progress, the tropical hinterlands became a historical agent that possessed and assimilated people into an alternative temporal order through a saprophytic process. This essay focuses on three novels—Wilson Harris' The Palace of the Peacock (1960), Edgar Mittelholzer's My Bones and My Flute (1955), and Alejo Carpentier's The Lost Steps (1953)—that enact what I term a "saprophytic temporality": a form of time in which the past is constantly recycled, decomposed, and transformed into new forms. This process of continual regeneration also causes Caribbean residents to realize their involvement in ongoing imperial violence against the interior and its Indigenous inhabitants. In effect, this key subset of Caribbean novels of the 1950s and 1960s imply that the alternative to colonial development is not the independent Caribbean nation but a stranger and more unfathomable form of existence defined by the temporality of the Caribbean environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the 1920s, declamadora Berta Singerman was frequently criticized by the Argentine avant-garde because her popular performances never included their poems. Dismissed as an embodiment of cursilería ever since, she was in fact a key component of international poetry circuits who developed relationships with Alfonsina Storni, Federico García Lorca, and Gabriela Mistral, among others. In correspondence with Alejo Carpentier, the Cuban writer counseled her on capturing the dynamics of declamation onscreen, suggesting that she could emphasize the rhythms of her performances through close-ups on her moving hands accompanying the poem--a technique Singerman employed in a 1942 film. No stranger to working across media, Carpentier recognized rhythm as the crucial connection between declamation's two types of corpus: the collection of poems and the body. In conversation with Carpentier's observations, this piece focuses on how rhythm shaped production and reception alike as Singerman attracted large crowds across the Americas. It argues that Singerman, who would call herself the "libertadora de poesía," accented rhythm in her performances so that audiences could make sense of the recited poems--and this process involved not only allowing those poems to be heard and felt but also creating a space for them to perform ideological work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article studies a short story by Alejo Carpentier, 'El milagro del ascensor (Cuento para un apéndice a la 'Leyenda Áurea')', as a way to discuss multiple elements which would come to be foundational of the latter marvelous realism in the new Latin American narrative. Among them, we find a rewriting, under modern irony, of a baroque discourse, besides a resignified use of the allegory as a mean of expression, and also a dialectic between the local and the foreign that is synthesized through the project of a mestizo cultural identity and a marvelous based on the ubiquity of a syncretic Christianity formalized in a literary aesthetic -- characteristics that have an effect on the verbal expression of time and space in the narration, as well as on the relation between narrator's and character's discourse, conceived as actively responsive. We are helped by Carpentier's own definition of marvelous real, created in 1949, Walter Benjamin's discussions on allegory and Bakhtin's definitions of modern irony and the cultural value of the foreign language; those theoretical definitions are then mediated by further studies on Latin American literatures that identify in them the prevalence of a baroque and allegorical discourse (Doris Sommer, Luis Ernesto Lasso and Irlemar Chiampi). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This essay highlights the importance of the first-known antecedent of Alejo Carpentier's novel El reino de este mundo (1949)—a story published in the journal Gaceta del Caribe in 1944 under the title "Capítulo de Novela." A reading of the two texts together reveals that traces of the Gothic heritage of Edgar Allan Poe and Horace Walpole that were explicit in "Capítulo de Novela" were systematically erased from the final manuscript of El reino de este mundo. These erasures advanced the notion of an authentic American aesthetic that would be risked if the novel were read for what it was: a sophisticated bricolage of documentary sources on Haitian history, collections of oral sources on Vodou, and clichés drawn from horror literature of European and North American origin. Thus, Carpentier's attempt to combine a revolutionary ethos, transatlantic enlightenment, abolitionism, and the renewal of the novel in a new branch of the fantastic was done at the expense of the emergence of the gothic form in "our America." [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Alejo Carpentier’s work is known for its scathing disprovals of surrealist ideas. Although, at young age, the author promoted the movement and built himself intellectually from within surrealist precepts, as well as attached to surrealist artists. The presumed disruption with Surrealism is a benchmark in Carpentier’s literary production and shows an ambiguous position, since it is possible to track significant surrealist traces in his essays and narratives. The main concept linked to the author (the "Marvelous Real") is in the spotlight between the rejection of surrealism, as a basic precept, and the resumption of some of itsideas. In this work, we aim to analyze the contradictory position of Carpentier’s discourse through the dialogue between essays written by him at different moments of life, as well as their comparison with critical works on the subject. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Este artigo examina um conto de Alejo Carpentier, ‘El milagro del ascensor (Cuento para un apéndice a la ‘Leyenda Áurea’)’, para discutir por meio dele elementos que constituiriam, em obras posteriores, o realismo maravilhoso da nova narrativa latino-americana. Encontramos principalmente uma reescrita, sob a ironia moderna, do discurso barroco, assim como um uso ressignificado da alegoria como modo de expressão, além de uma dialética entre o local e o estrangeiro que busca sua síntese em um projeto de identidade cultural mestiça e de um maravilhoso que se baseia na ubiquidade de um cristianismo sincrético, absorvido como estética literária – aspectos que afetam a própria expressão verbal do tempo e do espaço na narração, além da relação, concebida como ativamente responsiva, entre o discurso do narrador e da personagem. Recorremos à própria definição de real maravilhoso criada por Carpentier em 1949, assim como à discussão de Walter Benjamin sobre a alegoria no drama barroco alemão e às definições dadas por Bakhtin para a ironia moderna e o valor cultural da palavra estrangeira; tais definições teóricas são então mediadas pelos estudos de Doris Sommer, Luis Ernesto Lasso e Irlemar Chiampi, que identificam nas literaturas da América Latina a prevalência de um discurso barroco e alegórico.

ABSTRACT: In the 1920s, declamadora Berta Singerman was frequently criticized by the Argentine avant-garde because her popular performances never included their poems. Dismissed as an embodiment of cursilería ever since, she was in fact a key component of international poetry circuits who developed relationships with Alfonsina Storni, Federico García Lorca, and Gabriela Mistral, among others. In correspondence with Alejo Carpentier, the Cuban writer counseled her on capturing the dynamics of declamation onscreen, suggesting that she could emphasize the rhythms of her performances through close-ups on her moving hands accompanying the poem—a technique Singerman employed in a 1942 film. No stranger to working across media, Carpentier recognized rhythm as the crucial connection between declamation’s two types of corpus: the collection of poems and the body. In conversation with Carpentier’s observations, this piece focuses on how rhythm shaped production and reception alike as Singerman attracted large crowds across the Americas. It argues that Singerman, who would call herself the “libertadora de poesía,” accented rhythm in her performances so that audiences could make sense of the recited poems—and this process involved not only allowing those poems to be heard and felt but also creating a space for them to perform ideological work. Keywords: Berta Singerman, Alejo Carpentier, declamation, poetry, cinema, media studies, body, rhythm RESUMEN: En la década de 1920, Berta Singerman fue criticada varias veces por las vanguardias argentinas porque los recitales de la declamadora no incluían sus poemas. Desde entonces frecuentemente ha sido desestimada como un ejemplo de la cursilería, pero Singerman formaba parte de importantes circuitos internacionales de poesía y se relacionó con Alfonsina Storni, Federico García Lorca y Gabriela Mistral, entre otros. En su correspondencia con Alejo Carpentier, el escritor cubano le ofreció a Singerman sugerencias sobre cómo captar las dinámicas de la declamación en el cine, proponiendo estrategias como el uso de primeros planos para mostrar el movimiento de sus manos acompañando un poema—una técnica que Singerman luego empleó en una película de 1942. Carpentier, quien manejaba una variedad de medios, identificó el ritmo como la conexión crucial entre los dos tipos de corpus que aparecen en la declamación: la colección de poemas y el cuerpo. Este artículo trabaja con las observaciones de Carpentier para pensar el modo en el cual el ritmo influía tanto en la producción como en la recepción de la declamación durante el período en que Singerman atraía a grandes públicos en las Américas y Europa. Arguye que Singerman, quien se autodenominaba la “libertadora de poesía”, acentuaba el ritmo en sus recitales para que los públicos pudieran encontrar sentido a los poemas recitados. Ese proceso implicaba la creación de un espacio no solo para escuchar y sentir los poemas sino también donde los mismos generaban efectos ideológicos. Palabras clave: Berta Singerman, Alejo Carpentier, declamación, cine, estudios de medios, cuerpo, ritmo

The essay considers different aspects of Kafka’s influence on Latin American literature and culture. It focuses on the concept of ‘influence’ and its interpretation in Borges, on the modalities of the absurd, and on the vexing confusions around the concept of ‘magic realism’.

This article reflects about the importance of Cheque writer Franz Kafka in the literary world of the Cuban novelist Alejo Carpentier. Kafka is an author cited and referred to frequently by Carpentier in his literary work (fiction and essay). Nevertheless, he it is not a traditional influence, but a model that boosted a slow transformation of Carpentiers “real marvelous” including the establishment of the marvelous as an atemporal cultural concept.

This article reflects about the importance of Cheque writer Franz Kafka in the literary world of the Cuban novelist Alejo Carpentier. Kafka is an author cited and referred to frequently by Carpentier in his literary work (fiction and essay). Nevertheless, he it is not a traditional influence, but a model that boosted a slow transformation of Carpentiers "real marvelous" including the establishment of the marvelous as an atemporal cultural concept. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The essay considers different aspects of Kafka's influence on Latin American literature and culture. It focuses on the concept of 'influence' and its interpretation in Borges, on the modalities of the absurd, and on the vexing confusions around the concept of 'magic realism'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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El presente trabajo reflexiona sobre el carácter del sujeto negro en dos obras de Alejo Carpentier: Écue-Yamba-Ó (1933) y El reino de este mundo (1949). Para esto se hace un recuento tanto de las tramas y los personajes de las obras, así como del contexto en el que fueron producidas, ciertos enfoques críticos sobre estas y algunas baterías teóricas tomadas desde las ciencias sociales y las humanidades. La finalidad de este artículo es entender diversos cambios acontecidos entre la producción de dichas obras, con énfasis en sus entendimientos del sujeto negro como sujeto político.

Reseña

Copyright of Cuadernos de Filología Italiana is the property of Universidad Complutense de Madrid and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Tropelías: Revista de Teoría de la Literatura y Literatura Comparada is the property of Prensas Universitarias de Zaragoza and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Alejo Carpentier is a writer who handles a huge volume of intellectual and cultural nature, due to his exquisite competence in subjects as different as music, architecture, history, philosophy, anthropology, art and literature. Thanks to his polished education from childhood and the endless curiosity and capacity to wonder about the cultural phenomena that affect the transatlantic field, his novels are constantly nourished by intertextualities, quotes, reflections on history, art or music, which are combined adequately with its critical, social, political and formal purposes. But this erudition, typical of the presence of the baroque in his work, also causes the author to intrude on many occasions in the narrative, undoubtedly marking his presence in some characters, almost always protagonists, and in the narrators of his works, for what the distance between author and narrator or characters is sometimes narrowed to almost imperceptible limits. This occurs especially when certain historical figures combine negative attitudes that are the object of criticism, with admirable characteristics, related to knowledge, culture and sensitivity for art, such as the dictator of El recurso del método, who is rejected for his tyrannical tendencies while being admired for his musical, historical and artistic knowledge. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a review of the Hungarian reception of contemporary Cuban fiction in different areas of the Hungarian press, published between 1959 and 1989. After giving a brief summary of the establishment and development of Hungarian-Cuban diplomatic and bilateral relations, the article offers a concise description of the communist period's cultural landscape, especially the press and publishing landscape, and examines the similarities and differences between Hungarian and Cuban cultural policies. In order to highlight the apparently paradoxical fact that, despite the close political and cultural ties between the two countries, the reception of Cuban literature was quite moderate, we examine reviews that appeared in the Hungarian press of Cuban anthologies, volumes of short stories, and novels published in Hungary. The article puts special emphasis on the Hungarian editions of Alejo Carpentier's works. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Este trabajo busca aproximarse a la peculiar práctica de la crónica ejercitada por Alejo Carpentier en sus artículos sobre arte escritos en Francia y publicados en las revistas cubanas Social y Carteles entre 1928 y 1939. En particular, indaga en la evaluación y apropiación críticas que el sujeto realiza del núcleo ideoestético de las vanguardias históricas. Parte de la hipótesis de que, en sus crónicas, el autor sistematiza una visión conceptual del arte moderno y de los nuevos valores como la máxima expresión de sentido en la modernidad. Al mismo tiempo, plantea que se visualiza en ellas una perspectiva latinoamericanista que promueve una reconfiguración del arte americano, en base a los extractos de la tradición nativa y del instrumental europeo. Con este objetivo, en un primer momento se alude a las condiciones del surgimiento del género en el ámbito latinoamericano a partir de los trabajos de Ramos y Rotker, y se propone una caracterización de las vanguardias desde los aportes de Bürger y otros autores, para señalar luego algunas de las claves del ideario carpenteriano. Nociones y categorías como la de lo poético, en tanto realidad autónoma y superior, operan con insistencia en dicha construcción interpretativa.

Este artículo hace una descripción de un método de investigación teológica, de carácter interdisciplinar, desarrollado en diálogo con el mundo de la literatura. En la base se encuentra la tesis doctoral Comprensión teo-literaria de la salvación: Aportes de la narrativa de Alejo Carpentier para una soteriología contemporánea. De los precursores de la hermenéutica filosófica contemporánea (Heidegger, Gadamer y Ricoeur) se obtiene la noción de comprensión que está en la base de este estudio (que permite pensar la salvación ante la existencia) y el método que le da su estructura general a la investigación (pre-comprensión, expansión del horizonte comprensor y recomprensión). La pregunta investigativa y la perspectiva de análisis la aporta la teología (primer momento). Para la expansión del horizonte comprensor (segundo momento), juega un papel clave la literatura. Respecto de su aporte, se destacan dos niveles complementarios: el antropológico y el sociohistórico, de los que se obtiene una visión de la realidad transfigurada por la obra literaria. Se llega así a dimensiones de lo real que normalmente se disimulan y permanecen ocultas a nuestros ojos. Del cruce de la primera y segunda parte (tercer momento) resulta un interesante ejercicio teo-literario de indudable riqueza para el pensar teológico. En la descripción de este método de investigación, de ahí su importancia, se destaca el valor que tiene para la teología el diálogo con el mundo de la literatura, en este caso, ante la pregunta que existiendo el ser humano dirige al Misterio santo del que depende su liberación, trascendencia, sentido y esperanza, en definitiva, su salvación.

Copyright of Cuestiones Teológicas is the property of Cuestiones Teologicas and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This paper presents a review of the Hungarian reception of contemporary Cuban fiction in different areas of the Hungarian press, published between 1959 and 1989. After giving a brief summary of the establishment and development of Hungarian-Cuban diplomatic and bilateral relations, the article offers a concise description of the communist period's cultural landscape, especially the press and publishing landscape, and examines the similarities and differences between Hungarian and Cuban cultural policies. In order to highlight the apparently paradoxical fact that, despite the close political and cultural ties between the two countries, the reception of Cuban literature was quite moderate, we examine reviews that appeared in the Hungarian press of Cuban anthologies, volumes of short stories, and novels published in Hungary. The article puts special emphasis on the Hungarian editions of Alejo Carpentier's works. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Gonzalo Fernández de Oviedo (1478-1557) and Bartolomé de las Casas (1484-1566) were protagonists of Spain's actions in America who also produced foundational works of history. Despite their personal enmity, their complementarity is apparent in writings accompanied by (Oviedo) or interpreted through (Las Casas) pictorial images. This essay's "complementar)' figures" refers to Oviedo and Las Casas as interpreters of the novelties of nature and the violence of conquest as well as to the relationship of word and image on making them known. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article reviews the cultural value of intertextual content in Alejo's Carpentier Concierto barroco. It examines the work of Carpentier issuing the importance universal of the theory of the Neo-Baroque and its relation with the consolidation of South America's identity. This text works as an invitation to follow up the richness in erudition within the work of Carpentier. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this text is to analyze pictorial references in El siglo de las luces by Alejo Carpentier. In the following pages we will try to show the fundamental role they fulfill in the novel. The exhibition will revolve around three axes: first, a general approach to the painting’s presence in the novel and the character’s characteristics; secondly, a focus on interpretations that emerge from the picture Explosión en una catedral, fundamentally in relation to Esteban’s character; thirdly, the indirect reference made by the narrator to Goya's paintings La Carga de los mamelucos and Los fusilamientos de la Moncloa, and the way in which that reference serves both to reinforce the heroic role of Sofia and Esteban, as well as the revolution consequences that Carpentier expresses.

El artículo tiene como objetivo analizar las estrategias narrativas presentes en El arpa y la sombra de Alejo Carpentier (1979) que comprenden lo que la teoría literaria actual ha identificado como la “nueva novela histórica” latinoamericana. Primero se proporciona un breve panorama de la novela histórica tradicional y su contexto de aparición durante el romanticismo europeo del siglo xix, a partir de las aportaciones de Georg Lukács (1966), con la intención de diferenciar su modelo del correspondiente a la producción posterior en este género. A continuación se ofrece una caracterización general de la novela histórica escrita en América Latina a partir de las décadas finales del siglo xx, para reconocer las circunstancias histórico-sociales que dieron lugar a su renovación y a los rasgos que la determinan, junto con las propuestas de Mentón (1993) y Aínsa (1991) sobre el papel fundamental de Carpentier en su constitución. Finalmente, se realiza el estudio de cada uno de los aspectos señalados (distorsión consciente de los eventos históricos, ficcionalización de las grandes figuras históricas, uso de la primera persona en la narración, el dialogismo y la polifonía) con el objeto de demostrar la pertenencia de El arpa y la sombra a este reciente tipo de textos.

This essay examines how Federico García Lorca transforms the musical form son in his poem 'Son de negros en Cuba'. Significant in this is Lorca's relationship with anthropologist Fernando Ortiz, who regarded hybridity as foundational to post-colonial Cuban identity. For Ortiz and the Cuban writer Alejo Carpentier, son's hybridity is analogous to ethnic and cultural syncretism, which Ortiz likens to counterpoint, or the juxtaposition of contrasting lines in music. Syncretism and counterpoint, the core concepts of Ortiz's theory of 'transculturation', become paradigmatic of Lorca's poem. By writing 'counterpoint' into the poem, Lorca creates space for the performance of intercultural dialogue. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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El presente artículo toma como punto de partida tres textos de índole teórica de Ricardo Piglia sobre el género del cuento y el de la novela corta, para aplicar sus afirmaciones a la observación de un texto literario, El acoso de Alejo Carpentier, buscando ver así las limitaciones y los aciertos de sus tesis. El acoso, interpretado aquí como novela corta, queda luego brevemente comparado con otras obras carpenterianas, cuento y novela, para ver qué solidez tienen los límites dibujados a base de las ideas de Piglia, con algún que otro suplemento derivado de la contrastación de las tesis con la obra literaria.

El presente artículo reflexiona sobre la autenticidad latinoamericana a través de la obra y pensamiento de Alejo Carpentier. Un gran intelectual que tuvo la preocupación por reivindicar la cultura de los pueblos de América mediante la defensa de su originalidad. Tuvo, además, la convicción del modo en que se había articulado lo específico del mundo cultural de estas tierras al patrimonio universal de la humanidad, sin necesidad de la aprobación europea. This article reflects on the authenticity of Latin America through the work and thought of Alejo Carpentier. A great intellectual who was concerned to claim the culture of the peoples of America by defending their originality. He had the conviction of how the specificity of the cultural world of these lands had been articulated to the universal heritage of humanity, without the need for European approval.

Octavio Paz en sus ensayos El pachuco y otros extremos (1950) y La inteligencia mexicana (1950), al igual que Alejo Carpentier (1904-1980) en De lo real maravilloso americano (1967) y Conciencia e identidad de América (1975), se dieron a la tarea de conjurar una serie de respuestas frente a las singularidades latinoamericanas insertas en una tradición universal; tal tarea fue emprendida también por Gabriel García Márquez (1927-2014) en La soledad de América Latina (1982) y Por un país al alcance de los niños (1994); finalmente Mario Vargas Llosa (1936) se expresó al respecto en ¿Libertad para los libres? (1983) y Dentro y fuera de América Latina (2005). Las obras narrativas de estos escritores fueron vitales en la consolidación de una literatura latinoamericana, pero es válido señalar que otro tanto sucedió con su amplia producción intelectual, específicamente en los ensayos ya nombrados. El ensayo, sin lugar a duda, es un género que permitió la transmisión de ideas, lo que lo hace un “potencializador” de la enunciación discursiva, y de allí que sea posible establecer los “ideologemas”, o instrumentos translingüísticos que brindan información acerca de las coordenadas históricas y sociales del texto, y que para el caso específico de este trabajo se encuentran presentes en los diferentes discursos sobre este territorio denominado América Latina. De esta manera, la meta de este estudio es analizar las expresiones de lo singular latinoamericano en estos autores a través de los ideologemas: “soledad”, “mestizaje”, “maravilla”, “mito” y “viaje”.

Following a legacy of four and a half centuries of literature written by foreign travelers landing on Haiti's shores, Alejo Carpentier's seminal novel about the Haitian Revolution is predicated upon Carpentier's voyage to Haiti six years earlier. This article attends to the role of voyage in Carpentier's The Kingdom of This World , revealing the ways in which Carpentier's storytelling and rendering of Haiti in both the novel and its prologue, and his accompanying theory of the marvelous real, adhere to Eurocentric conceptions of time that reinscribe this neocolonial space as anachronistic space. Because Carpentier can only perceive Haiti in the past, he replicates the role of the imperial travel writer in fashioning metropolitan conceptions of colonial spaces and reproduces the imbalance of power between visitor/visited. This perspective reinforces a dominant Euro-American image of Haiti as a strange and magical object of consumption and fails to imagine it as an independent, post-revolution state. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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The article is devoted to the most “politically engaged” and the most controversial novel by the prominent Cuban writer. It took Alejo Carpentier eighteen years to create a work that appeared at the intersection of two literary coordinates: “a new Latin American novel” and “a novel of Cuban revolution”. In this regard the author studies both history and prehistory of “a novel of Cuban Revolution”, and observes the main stages of its development. In the course of work on The Rite of Spring (1978), three different variants of the novel’s plan (1959, Silver Guests, and Russian from Baracoa) were reinterpreted by the writer, the materials of Carpentier's early essays and reportages were used, as well as the memories of his mother, a Russian emigrant. The article analyses the artistic peculiarities of this novel by Carpentier (its genre identity, specific intertextuality, various levels of reading). The fact is that Carpentier, having his characters live through the twentieth century, from the Russian revolution to the Cuban revolution, creates a special perspective and perception of reality for them. His focus is laid upon history, comprehended through the prism of art. Justifying the expectations of some literary critics and disappointing others, The Rite of Spring remains open for interpretation up to the present day.

Las sociedades secretas abakuá han sido históricamente asociadas con el crimen y la delincuencia dentro del imaginario cubano. Una mirada atenta revela, en cambio, la necesidad de repensar la naturaleza de estas organizaciones de ayuda mutua basadas en un complejo universo mítico-religioso. El mito genesíaco de Sikán funciona como punto de apoyo de una cosmovisión única dentro del espectro de los cultos afrocubanos, entre los que se incluye el abakuá. El siguiente ensayo explora la incorporación de este mito y de la presencia abakuá en textos de Alejo Carpentier y Lydia Cabrera, y su relación con una hibridez genérica marcada por lo etnográfico y lo literario. Con este propósito, el presente ensayo se orienta hacia la búsqueda y deconstrucción de representaciones literarias de la presencia negra en Cuba y sus efectos en la configuración de las obras en cuestión.

El presente estudio ofrece puntos de comparación y contraste entre la mirada insular caribeña del artista y autor exiliado Eugenio F. Granell y la tesis identitaria sobre América Latina del escritor y musicólogo Alejo Carpentier. En su ensayo “Lo real maravilloso de América”, Carpentier denunciaba la falsa representación de América Latina por parte de los seguidores de la corriente surrealista que -como André Breton y Granell en su libro Isla cofre mítico- fueron arrastrados al nuevo continente por las guerras en Europa. El interrogante de quién podría adjudicarse el legítimo papel de representante de América, nos hace cuestionar si realmente Carpentier, de origen europeo y formado intelectualmente en París, logró plasmar la autenticidad americana a la que aspiraba en su ensayo. Partiendo de esta duda, el presente estudio girará en torno a las siguientes preguntas: ¿en qué diferían el acercamiento insular de Granell y los argumentos de los que se sirvió Carpentier para representar el paisaje de América Latina? ¿A qué modelos recurrieron ambos escritores y qué problemas presentaban estas dos representaciones del escenario americano? Y, finalmente, ¿se podría interpretar Isla cofre mítico como una respuesta o reacción a las críticas hacia la corriente surrealista que aparecen en el ensayo de Carpentier?