Critically acclaimed Cuban writer Alejo Carpentier's pioneering use of magical realism incorporating fantastic or mythical elements into realistic fiction, sometimes blurring the distinction between fantasy and reality has inspired many writers. Considered an intellectual as well as a writer, his characteristically complex work contains references to music, history, politics, science, art, and mythology.
Background
Alejo Carpentier Valmont was born on December 26, 1904, in Havana, Cuba, to affluent immigrant parents. His father, Georges Carpentier, a French architect and designer of many of Havana's buildings, had emigrated to Havana with his wife, Lina Valmont, a Russian pianist, in 1902, the year of Cuba's independence. Even when living in Havana, French was spoken at home; however, Carpentier spoke Spanish with his friends, many of whom were black and from vastly dissimilar backgrounds. Throughout his life he would struggle with his privileged home culture and the more vivid and marvelous everyday world outside.
Education
Both parents contributed in different ways to the formation of Carpentier as a writer. From his mother and music teacher Carpentier acquired his talent and affinity for music. The Carpentier's home in El Cotorro, on the outskirts of Havana, was a sprawling mansion where Carpentier had access to a vast collection of literature in his father's library. He attended Colegio Mimó and began to learn English at the Candler College, a North American school for only the most affluent families. While a student at both institutions, he studied music.
Throughout his life, Carpentier spent periods living in France. During his adolescence he traveled with his family to Russia to claim an inheritance, and later went to France, where he attended the Lyceé Jeanson de Sailly in Paris. Following his father's footsteps, in 1921 he began architectural studies at the University of Havana, but the following year, he abandoned his studies when his father deserted the family.
Career
He began to work as a journalist for the avantgarde magazine Carteles, and within two years he was its editor-in-chief. The early 1920s marked a period of political upheaval and demonstrations against the dictatorship of Gerardo Machado. Carpentier was involved in this movement both as a writer and as a member of the student movement to oust the government. His political activities earned him a few months of imprisonment when he openly condemned the Machado dictatorship. On his release in 1929 he fled to France with a false passport. During the following 12 years in France, he studied the history and culture of the Americas in-depth and began the realization of his future as a writer. While exiled in France, he continued to write for Cuban publications.
During 11 of his 12 years in France, he was employed as the director and producer of spoken-arts programs and recordings for the French company Foniric Studios in Paris. In 1933 he published his first novel, Ecuéyamba O!, which literally means "Praised Be the Lord." This work, which he had begun to write while imprisoned in Cuba, is a compassionate account of life and culture for blacks in Cuba and a condemnation of the Machado dictatorship. In 1936, after12 years of self-exile during which he became acquainted with surrealism and other avant-garde movements, experienced the Spanish Civil War, and accumulated an impressive work resume he was ready to return to Cuba, where he spent the most prolific years of his career.
On his return to Cuba, Carpentier became editor of the journal Tiempo Nuevo. In addition, his broadcasting experience landed him a job as director of the radio station CMX in Havana. His vast musical knowledge and experience allowed him to become professor of musicology in Cuba's National Conservatory of Music in 1941.
After traveling all over Haiti in a Jeep with Lilia in 1943, he began working on a novel, El reino de este mundo (1949), published in English as The Kingdom of This World in 1957. The book was inspired by the stories he had learned in Haiti and the landscapes he had toured. It revolves around the story of the early nineteenth century Haitian tyrant Henri Christophe, and is considered historic or realistic fiction grounded in what became his trademark magical realism. He continued to travel widely, living in Venezuela from 1945 to 1959. Through his work in newspapers, radio, and novels, he began to achieve recognition and economic stability. He was a contributor to the literary magazine Orígenes, a major Cuban cultural journal, and La Gaceta del Caribe (Caribbean Gazette), one with a more political leftist bent. In 1946 he published La música en Cuba (Music in Cuba), the first comprehensive published history of Cuban music. In 1956, Los pasos perdidos, considered his masterpiece, was translated into English as The Lost Steps.
A supporter of Fidel Castro's revolution, Carpentier returned to Cuba from his self-imposed exile in 1959 with the manuscript for El siglo de las luces (1962) (published in English as Explosion in a Cathedral, 1963), which depicts the French Revolution from a Caribbean perspective. In the mid-1960s Carpentier became director of a weekly radio broadcast series on Cuban culture. In 1970 he was appointed cultural attaché to the Cuban embassy in Paris, a post he held for the rest of his life. During those years he continued to write and publish.
He died in Paris on April 24,1980, and was buried in Cuba at the Necropolis de Colon. Posthumously, Venezuela presented him with its highest honor, the Orden Libertador de Primera Clase, honoring the 14 years he lived in that country and his literary contribution to the world.
Membership
Member: Academy, del Folklore de México.
Personality
While he is considered one of the greatest Latin American writers of the twen-tieth century, his life was not without controversy. His close relationship with the Castro regime was controversial, particularly among other Latin American writ-ers. One of their points of contention was that while Cuban nationals could not publish or receive foreign payment for their publications, he was allowed royalty privileges and was able to travel with a diplomatic passport all over the world.