Alejo Carpentier (1904-1980) was one of the major Latin American writers of the twentieth century, as well as a classically trained pianist and musicologist. His best-known novels are The Lost Steps, Explosion in a Cathedral, and The Kingdom of This World. Born in Lausanne, Switzerland, and raised in Havana, Cuba, Carpentier lived for many years in France and Venezuela before returning to Cuba after the 1959 revolution. A few years later he returned to France, where he lived until his death.
“An erudite yet absorbing adventure story . . . A book full of riches—stylistic, sensory, visual.” —The New York Times Book Review “Extraordinary.” —The New Yorker “The greatest novel to have appeared in Latin America in our time.” —Le Figaro Littéraire “Beautiful and stirring . . . One of [Carpentier’s] finest works . . . which for many readers is the most alluring of his novels.” ―Leonardo Padura, from the Introduction