Alejo Carpentier

Alejo Carpentier y Valmont (December 26, 1904 – April 24, 1980) was a Cuban novelist, essay writer, and musicologist who greatly influenced Latin American literature during its famous "boom" period.

Originally born in Lausanne, Switzerland, Carpentier grew up in Havana, Cuba; and despite his European birthplace, Carpentier would strongly self-identify as Cuban throughout his life. He traveled extensively, particularly in France, and to South America and Mexico, where he met prominent members of the Latin American cultural and artistic community. Carpentier took a keen interest in Latin American politics and often aligned himself with revolutionary movements, such as Fidel Castro's Communist Revolution in Cuba in the mid-century. Carpentier was jailed and exiled for his leftist political philosophies.

With a developed knowledge of music, Carpentier also explored musicology, publishing an in-depth study of the music of Cuba, La música en Cuba and integrated musical themes and literary techniques throughout his works. Through Cuban music, Carpentier explored elements of Afro-Cubanism and incorporated the cultural aspects into the majority of his writings. Though Carpentier wrote in a myriad of genres, such as journalism, radio drama, playwrighting, academic essays, opera and libretto, he is best known for his novels. He was among the first practitioners of magical realism using the technique, lo real maravilloso to explore the fantastic quality of Latin American history and culture. The most famous example of Afro-cuban influence and use of lo real maravilloso is Carpentier's 1949 novel El reino de este mundo (The Kingdom of this World) about the Haitian revolution of the late 18th century.

Carpentier's writing style integrated the resurgent Baroque style, or New World Baroque style that Latin American artists adopted from the European model and assimilated to the Latin American artistic vision. With a first-hand experience of the French Surrealist movement, Carpentier also adapted the Surrealist theory to Latin American literature. Always eager to explore not only Cuban identity, Carpentier used his traveling experiences throughout Europe and Latin American to expand his understanding of Latin American identity.

Carpentier wove elements of Latin American political history, music, social injustice and art into the tapestries of his writings, all of which exerted a decisive influence on the works of younger, Latin American writers. Carpentier died in Paris in 1980, and was buried in Havana's Colon Cemetery with other Cuban political and artistic luminaries.

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 after his birth; however, following Carpentier's death, his birth certificate was found in Switzerland. Carpentier was the son of Jorge Julián Carpentier, a French architect, and Lina Valmont, a Russian language teacher.

When Alejo was 12, his family moved from Cuba to Paris. He began to study music theory at the Lycée Jeanson de Sailly. As an adolescent, he read Balzac, Flaubert, and Zola. In 1921, Carpentier attended the School of Architecture of the University of Havana. His parents broke up and his father abandoned the family. Carpentier left his studies and tried to find work. He turned to journalism, working for the Cuban newspapers Carteles and Social. He also studied music.

Cuba and exile in France

After his primary education in Cuba, between 1912 and 1921, Carpentier traveled to Paris, France to study his secondary education. This became advantageous for Carpentier because having a Cuban and French education allowed him to have a diverse cultural understanding. During this time, Carpentier studied musical theory and became, and in Carpentier's words he described himself as “an acceptable pianist".

In 1921, while attending his studies in La Havana, Carpentier became a cultural journalist, writing mostly about avant-garde developments in the arts, particularly music." He contributed as a columnist to La Discusión which is a daily journal from Havana. His journalistic work was considered leftist and helped establish the Cuban Communist Party. During this same period, Carpentier decided to not continue his university studies and returned back to France where he would continue focusing on journalism."

During 1923 and 1924 he would continue to work as a columnist and also diversify his work by editing musical and theatre reviews to La Discusión and El Heraldo de Cuba." During 1924 y 1928 he became editor in chief of the magazine Carteles and in 1927 (with the help of 'Los Cinco': Jorge Mañach, Juan Marinello, Francisco Ichaso, and Martí Casanovas) he created the Revista de Avance, a magazine devoted to nationalism, radicalism and new ideas in the arts." This magazine, which was in circulation between March 15 1927 and September 15 1930 was the "voice of the vanguard" and the primary voice of expression of the Cuban movement." Because of his involvement in such projects, Carpentier was often suspected of having subversive and ultramodern cultural ideas. Carpentier was arrested for opposing the Gerardo Machado y Morales dictatorship. He had signed a democratic and anti-imperialist manifesto against Machado's regime and, as a result, spent forty days in jail. It was during this brief period in jail that he started working on his first novel, Ecué-Yamba-O (1933), an exploration of Afro-Cuban traditions among the poor of the island. He completed the final version of Ecue-Yamba-O in 1933 and published it in Madrid. After his release, he escaped Cuba with the help of journalist Robert Desnos who had lent him his passport and papers. Carpentier decided to exile himself to France and arrived in Paris in 1928 where it became his home for several years until 1939, when he would eventually make his way back to Havana. At the time when he left Cuba he was fortunate to avoid the political conflicts which had occurred during the 1930’s. During this time many Cuban intellectuals had to define their political position and for these and other political reason he decided to leave.

During this time abroad this disconnection from Cuba and the interaction with different groups of intellectuals and artists in Paris helped with his ‘critical vision’. Carpentier focused primarily on reading and studying all he could about America so he could know what he was writing about. Carpentier felt that it was important for him to not integrate into the influences of movements because he believed in maintaining a “balance against the insularity of his homeland”. For over 8 years he spent most of his time reading American texts as he felt it was important for Carpentier to understand the importance of knowing the contexts of his writings which allows for the artistic process to produce the 'creativity and imagination'. He felt that by embracing everything American he could understand better where he came in terms of socio-political background. As he sought to discover a better understanding within his literary abilities and attempt the “arduous task of making American art universal” he is able to discover his patriotism”. This time away from his homeland helps him to understand the Latin-American world and his roots.

Upon arriving in Paris he immediately begins working on poems and editorials in Parisian and Cuban magazines. He contributes to the magazine Documents and L’Intransigeant. In the Homenaje a nuestros amigos de Paris he publishes the current news and activities of those who have also been exiled and who belong to the “Comité de Jeunes Revolutionnaires Cubains” which publishes La Terreur á Cuba which is a brochure against the Machando government. Although abroad, Carpentier still maintains contact with Cuba by sending articles and poems to contribute to publications, such as Ensayos Convergentes , to Havana.

It also during this time that with the help of Robert Desnos Carpentier becomes part of the surrealist movement which, together with the vanguard, became a positive influence in his work. Within this group of the surrealists, which included André Breton, Paul Éluard, Louis Aragon, Jacques Prévert, and Antonin Artaud, they all collaborated together in the Revelution Surrealiste (1928). In this magazine, they wrote “surrealist stories” like the short-story ‘El Estudiante’ (L’Edtudiant). While in France, Carpentier also founded a literary magazine called Imán in 1931, for which he became editor-in-chief. Most of the authors who worked with him in Revelution Surrealiste also contributed works in Imán under the title “Conocimiento de America”. Surrealism helped to see contexts and aspects of American life that he did not see before approaching it as a “Nativism”. But Carpentier also felt that the French defined surrealism in a different way which he was somewhat critical. What he sees is the French adaptation which suggests the “search of the marvelous in the world of the absurd, subconscious, in travels and in dreams”. He believes that the search of the marvelous within the “rules of a disorderly fantasy” is called “magical realism”. After sometime working among the leading artistic figures Carpentier did not feel overly enthusiastic about his work within surrealism and had felt that his “surrealist attempts have been in vain” describing his frustration as he felt he had “nothing to add to this movement in France.

As Carpentier became acquainted with those among the arts community he had several encounters to meet other famous authors such as Pablo Neruda, who had sent him a draft of his book “Residencia el la Tierra” to review, Guatemalan author Miguel Ángel Asturias, whose work on pre-Columbian mythology influenced his writing , and through his friends within the arts Carpentier was introduced to Pablo Picasso.

He continued to earn his living by writing on contemporary culture, both in French and Spanish. He also began working for a French radio station as a sound-technician and producer.

Together with the composer Amadeo Roldán, Carpentier helped organize the Cuban premiers of works by Stravinsky and Poulenc. Participating in the Grupo Minorista and other avant-garde cultural groups, he became deeply involved in political protest. In 1926, Carpentier went to Mexico where he met the revolutionary painter Diego Rivera.

Carpentier 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 worked on an important history of Cuban music, eventually published in 1946 as La música en Cuba. He also wrote short stories which were later collected in The War of Time (1958). While in Cuba, Carpentier attended a santería ceremony that was to further deepen his interest in Afro-Cubanism.

In 1943, accompanied by French theatrical director Louis Jouvet, Carpentier made a crucial trip to Haiti, during which he visited the fortress of the Citadelle Laferrière 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, El Reino de Este Mundo (The Kingdom of this World) (1949).

In 1945, Carpentier moved to Caracas. From 1945 to 1959 he lived in Venezuela, which is the inspiration for the unnamed South American country in which much of The Lost Steps takes place. In 1949, he finished 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

Carpentier returned to Cuba after Fidel Castro's Communist revolution in 1959. He worked for the State Publishing House while he completed the baroque-style book, El Siglo de las Luces (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, Carpentier settled in Paris where 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 was recipient of the French Laureates Prix Médicis étranger in 1979 for La harpe et l'ombre.

Carpentier was struggling with cancer as he completed his final novel and finally died in Paris on April 24, 1980. His remains were returned to Cuba for interment in the Colon Cemetery, Havana.

Themes

Lo real maravilloso

Carpentier is widely known for his theory of "lo real maravilloso,". This is the notion that the history and the geography of Latin America are both so extreme as to appear fictional; magical to outsiders. Thus, Latin America is a region where the line between magic and reality is blurred. It was in the prologue to The Kingdom of this World, a novel of the Haitian Revolution, that he described his vision of "lo real maravilloso": "But what is the history of Latin America but a chronicle of magical realism?". The novel itself develops the outlandish (but true) history of Henri Christophe, first king of Haiti, as an example of how the real history of Latin America is so strange as to appear fictional. Some critics interpret the "real maravilloso" as being synonymous with magical realism. However, Carpentier's theory and its development in his work are more limited in their scope than is the magical realism of, for example, Gabriel García Márquez. Whereas García Márquez's works include events that the reader never mistakes for reality (rainfall of flowers, old men with wings, etc.), Carpentier, for the most part, simply writes about extreme aspects of the history and geography of Latin America, aspects that are almost unbelievable, but that are in fact true.

Music

As a young child Carpentier was exposed to a great deal of music. Carpentier himself played the piano, while Carpentier's father played cello studying under Pau Casals, his grandmother played the organ and his mother the piano. Carpentier went on to formally study music theory at the Lycée Jeanson de Sailly. Between developing his own footprint in the Cuban musical landscape, Carpentier formally studied the origins and political nuances of Cuban music. His devotion to the adaptations of European artistic styles into Latin American music styles can also be seen in the admiration he has for Afro-Cuban musical themes.

Famous Musical Works

Early in his career Carpentier collaborated with other young musicians eager to explore Cuban musical roots. One such collaborator was Amadeo Roldán a French musician of Cuban background. They helped to organize the Cuban premiere of popular orchestral music of the era Conciertos de música nueva (Concerts of New Music), featuring composers such as Stravinsky, Milhaud, Ravel, Malipiero, Poulenc and Eric Satie. In regards to their own music, Carpentier and Roldán were far more interested in integrating African rhythms and melodies into their works and abandoned imitation of European musical styles. "¡Abajo la lira, arriba el bongó! (Down with the lyre, up with the bongo!) was the popular slogan for their style of music. Carpentier and Roldán collaborated on numerous works the most well known of them include the 1925 orchestral piece Obertura sobre temas cubanos (Overture on Cuban Themes) scandalous for its betrayal of what was seen as proper European style symphony in lieu of Afro-cuban inspired music , Tres pequeñas poemas: Oriente, Pregón, Fiesta negra (Three little poems) produced in 1926, and two Afro-cuban ballets: La Rebambaramba, a colonial ballet in two parts (1928) and El milagro de Anaquille (1929).

Ethnomusicology

With this intrinsic appreciation of music and a fascination with Cuban identity, Carpentier began investigating the origins of Cuban music in a more academic sense. In 1946, Carpentier published the ethnomusicological study La Música en Cuba which explores how European music, transplanted African music and the indigenous music of the island all blended together to create Cuban music. Carpentier took particular interest in Afro-Cuban themes.

Music in Prose

Carpentier's interest in music had great influence on his prose writing. Navarro suggests that readers of Carpentier's works are more listeners than they are readers. Lyrical use of colloquial dialects, literary rhythms such as alliteration and assonance and the theme of music within the world of the narrative (drums, footsteps, etc.) are a few examples of music's influence over Carpentier's work. In an interview the author himself was quoted as saying, "Music is present in all of my work." For Carpentier, analysis of Cuban identity was grounded in the analysis of Cuban music. As such, for Carpentier to better understand Cuban identity through his work, he eagerly integrated music into his writing.

Afro-Cubanism and Music

Particularly fascinated with the overwhelming influence of African music in Cuban music, Carpentier introduced Afro-Cuban influenced music called lo afrocubano, (i.e. heavily improvised and rhythm based music) into what was deemed more formal music venues dependent on European styles, called lo guajiro. Carpentier once wrote that lo guajiro was, "very poetic, but lo guajiro is not music...On the other hand, in mestizo and black music...the rich material has an incredible wealth to it...to make it the work of a national expression." Due to racial tensions between white Cubans and black or criollo Cubans, such preferences were not well received by the Cuban elite of the mid century. Carpentier also devoted the majority of his musicology research to the Afro-Cuban influences present in Cuba. For example, Carpentier paid particular attention to Contradanza, a wildly popular Cuban dance derived from the European style of music and dance, Contredanse. The ample room left for musical improvisation and the element of group dance were easily adapted into African musical tradition where improvisation and dance play integral roles. Hence, a hybrid musical form unique to Cuba was created. Carpentier theorizes that the improvisation inherent in African influenced music allows for varied interpretations that catalyze regional differences and therefore regional identity, and thus, reasons Carpentier, Cuba has such a varied musical identity.

Famous Works

Carpentier's most famous works include:

• Ecue-yamba-o! (1933) (Praised Be the Lord!)
• La música en Cuba (1946) (The Music of Cuba), an ethno-musicological study of Cuba starting from the sixteenth century, the arrival of European explorers, till the present day of publication, the mid twentieth century.
• El reino de este mundo (1949) (The Kingdom of this World)
• Los pasos perdidos (1953) (The Lost Steps)
• El acoso (1956) (Manhunt)
• Guerra del tiempo (1958) (War of Time)
• El siglo de las luces (1962) (Explosion in a Cathedral)
• El Recurso del método (1974) (Reasons of State)
• Concierto barroco (1974) (Concierto barroco), based on the 1709 meeting of Vivaldi, Handel and Domenico Scarlatti, with cameo appearances by Wagner and Stravinsky, and fictional characters from the new world who inspire the Venetian composer's opera, Motezuma.
• La consagración de la primavera (1978) (The Rite of Spring; Le Sacre du Printemps: Igor Stravinsky)
• El arpa y la sombra (1978) (The Harp and the Shadow) dealing with Columbus.

El reino de este mundo (The Kingdom of this World)

Carpentier's El reino de este mundo (1949) highlights the Haitian Revolution of the 18th century when the African slaves fought the French colonists for their freedom and basic human rights. The novel combines not only historical references of the event with aspects of African faith and rituals, most notably voodoo; but also the connections between corporal and spiritual self. The story is seen through the eyes of the protagonist Ti Noël, a black slave. It has been implied that Carpentier used such a character's point of view in order to avoid the racial stereotyping that may pursue him as a white, European/Cuban writer who published on the subject of the Haitian Revolution. Carpentier incorporates symbolic architecture throughout the novel; representing the dictatorship of colonial rule with structures such as the Sans-Souci Palace and the fortress of La Ferrière.

La música en Cuba (The Music of Cuba)

La música en Cuba (The Music of Cuba) is an ethno-musicological study of the Music of Cuba starting from the sixteenth century with the arrival of European explorers, until the present day of publication, the mid-twentieth century. The blending of different cultures: black, white, mulattos, criollos and natives, mirrors the blending of Cuba’s two main musical styles, the Christian European music and the elemental percussion and rhythm based music of the transported Africans and aboriginal peoples of the island.. The book includes general history of music in colonized Latin America, but mainly focuses on Cuban styles of music and dance, influential Cuban musicians and Cuban musical identity. Carpentier devotes a great deal of his study to exploring the influence African descendants had on Cuban music. He has an entire chapter titled, “Los Negros” ("The Blacks") that explores the many substantial ways African music influenced all of Latin American music. According to Carpentier, the African influence on Cuban music in particular was purposely hidden by the colonist prejudice of 18th and 19th century Cuba. At the time of the book's publication many white Cubans were reluctant to even acknowledge the blending of the cultures much less investigate it.. Carpentier though was eager to do so and by making bold statements about Cuba’s past and integral relationships with a wide range of cultures he succeeded in giving back to Cuba an in-depth academic perspective of its own cultural identity through its music..

Style

Baroque

The Baroque style dates back to the cultural period of the 17th and early 18th centuries. It is most often defined as "the dominant style of art in Europe between the Mannerist and Rococo eras, a style characterized by dynamic movement, overt emotion and self-confident rhetoric". Carpentier first became fascinated with this style in architecture and sculpture; however, he later describes el barroco as un espíritu, and not un estilo histórico ("a spirit, not an historical style"). Wakefield insists that this attitude towards the Baroque stemmed from Carpentier's background in both Europe and Latin America which allowed him to take on a superior front in the face of post-colonialism and ultimately have the literary upper-hand where he could use European style to tell the Latin American story. Carpentier enriched his vision of the baroque in his early crónicas before he equated himself as a writer of that fashion. He experimented with the baroque in several developmental stages: "first as a cultural style of aesthetic fascination, later as a literary device to create period ambience, and finally as a weapon of postcolonial pride, defiance and one-upmanship".

This style strongly presents itself when comparing works such as the early Ecue-Yamba-O to the celebrated El reino de este mundo, regarding Carpentier's use of distinguished vocabulary in the latter, instead of the authentic language of the ethnically-inspired characters. Here he escapes the stereotype of "nativism" by incorporating European standards, but continues to achieve a sense of normalcy without the expected use of the colloquialisms which the protagonist Ti Noel would undoubtedly use.

Kaup claims that Carpentier utilizes what is known as the "New World Baroque", seeing as Latin America didn't come into contact with the Enlightenment or "European modernity". This contraconquista (counter conquest) allows the New World authors to experiment with new identities and the manners of expressing them. As such, Carpentier observed in his 1975 essay that "American Baroque develop[ed] along with criollo culture[ . . . . ]: the awareness of being Other, of being new, of being symbiotic, of being a criollo; and the criollo spirit is itself a Baroque spirit." This criollo of the New World Baroque is often seen as the dominant style of European literature emerging as a subordinate literary construction in Latin America.

Influence of Travel

Wakefield notes that Carpentier motivated his diverse travels with his need to incoporate the sights he experienced into familiar descriptions within his novels. Carpentier stimulated El reino de este mundo from his 1943 trip to Haiti, and Los pasos perdidos from visiting Venezuela in 1949. Similarily, he travelled to Guadelupe and Gulf of Sante Fe to inspire El siglo de las luces, and Baku and Mexico for Vera and Enrique's firsthand descriptions in La consegración de la primavera.

Surrealism

During his visit to France early in his life, Carpentier was fortunate enough to meet and collaborate with many figures of the French Surrealism movement. Taken with Surrealist theory, Carpentier absorbed all he could from his contemporaries, mainly his friend and colleague, the Parisian poet Robert Desnos. Striving to portray unlikely beauty, termed, "the third beauty", Surrealist theory embraced unique perspectives of the world. Within the Surrealist theory was the concept of Primitivism or a reverence for presiding folkloric tradition: Nativism. Carpentier, inspired by French Surrealists, learned to view his Cuban home in this new light. He left France with a bursting sense of Cuban and Latin American pride and the artistic goal to capture what it meant to be both.

Quotes

• "For what is the story of [Latin] America if not a chronicle of the marvelous in the real."
• "Al llegar a París(...) conducido por Robert Desnos, que era una de las figuras capitales del surrealismo, me vi de lleno, a las 48 horas, en pleno movimiento surrealista." (Arriving in Paris, I met Robert Desnos, who was one of the capital figures of Surrealism, and within 48 hours I was fully immersed in the Surrealist movement.)
• "(Carpentier tiene)...un perpetuo trasiego, para una preocupacion perpetua: cual es mi identidad como cubano? Cual es mi papel como hombre?" ("Carpentier has... a perpetual issue, for a perpetual preoccupation: What is my identity as a Cuban? What is my roll as a man?") .

References

Primary

• Carpentier, Alejo (1975), The Baroque and the Marvelous Real
• Carpentier, Alejo (1990), Obras completas: Ensayos, Vol. 13, Mexico: Siglo XII
• Carpentier, Alejo (1972), La música en Cuba, Mexico: Fondo de Cultura Economica
• Carpentier, Alejo (1976), Razón de ser, Caracas: Universidad Central de Venezuela

Secondary

• Belnap, Jeffrey Grant (1993), The Post-Colonial State and the 'Hybrid' Intellect: Carpentier, Ngugi, and Spivak, Irvine, CA: U of California P
• Gosser Esquilín, Mary Ann (1997), "Caribbean Identities Reconstructed and Redefined in Women's Narrative Texts: Marie Chauvet, Myriam Warner-Vieyra, and Ana Lydia Vega", Latin American Issues, 13 (2) {{citation}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |month= (help)
• Kaup, Monika, "Becoming-Baroque: Folding European forms into the New World baroque with Alejo Carpentier", CR: The New Centennial Review, 5 (2), Michigan State University Press: 107–149, retrieved 03/12/10 {{citation}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= (help); Cite has empty unknown parameter: |month= (help)
• Navarro, Gabriel (1999), Musica y escrita en Alejo Carpentier, Alicante: Universidad de Alicante, ISBN 8479084766
• Paravisini-Gebert, Lizabeth (summer 2004), "The Haitian Revolution in Interstices and Shadows: A re-reading of Alejo Carpentier's "The Kingdom of This World"", Research in African Literatures, 35 (2), Indiana University Press: 114–127, retrieved 03/29/10 {{citation}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= and |date= (help); Cite has empty unknown parameter: |month= (help)CS1 maint: date and year (link)
• Piper, David (1984), A-Z of Art & Artists, London: Michell Beazeley, ISBN 0949819492
• Wakefield, Steve (2004), Capentier's Baroque Fiction: Returning Medusa's gaze, Great Britain: The Cromwell Press, ISBN 1855661071

Further reading

English

• Alchemy of a hero : a comparative study of the works of Alejo Carpentier and Mario Vargas Llosa / Bobs Tusa., 1983
• Alejo Carpentier, a comprehensive study / Bobs Tusa., 1982
• Alejo Carpentier and his early works / Frank Janney., 1981
• Alejo Carpentier : bibliographical guide / Roberto González Echevarría., 1983
• Alejo Carpentier : his Euro-Caribbean vision / Lloyd King., 1972
• Alejo Carpentier, the pilgrim at home / Roberto González Echevarría, 1990
• Alejo Carpentier (Twayne World Author's Series) / Donald Leslie Shaw., 1985
• Carpentier's Baroque fiction : returning Medusa's gaze / Steve Wakefield., 2004
• Carpentier, El reino de este mundo / Richard A Young., 1983
• Carpentier, Los pasos perdidos / Verity Smith., 1983
• Carpentier's Proustian fiction : the influence of Marcel Proust on Alejo Carpentier / Sally Harvey., 1994
• Myth and history in Caribbean fiction : Alejo Carpentier, Wilson Harris, and Edouard Glissant / Barbara Webb., 1992
• Postmodern tales of slavery in the Americas : from Alejo Carpentier to Charles Johnson / Timothy J Cox., 2001
• The logic of fetishism : Alejo Carpentier and the Cuban tradition / James J Pancrazio., 2004
• Three authors of alienation : Bombal, Onetti, Carpentier / Michael Ian Adams., 1975

Spanish

• Alejo Carpentier ante la crítica / Fernando Ainsa., 2005
• Alejo Carpentier y el mundo clasico / Inmaculada López Calahorro., 2006
• Alejo Carpentier, el peregrino en su patria / Roberto González Echevarría., 1993
• Alejo Carpentier, el peregrino en su patria / Roberto González Echevarría., 2004
• Alejo Carpentier : el tiempo del hombre / Eduardo González., 1978
• Alejo Carpentier : Estudio biográfico-critico / Klaus Müller Bergh., 1972
• Alejo Carpentier : estudios sobre su narrativa / Esther P Mocega-González., 1980
• Alejo Carpentier : tientos y differencias / Luis Blanco., 1970
• Alejo Carpentier : viaje a la Semilly y otros relatos / Carlos Santander., 1971
• Alejo Carpentier y la cultura del surrealismo en América Latina / Anke Birkenmaier., 2006
• Asedios a Carpentier / Klaus Müller Bergh., 1972
• Carpentier : una revisión lineal / Dinko Cvitanovic., 1997
• Casa de las Américas, no.87, "Con Alejo Carpentier" / Jaime Labastida., 1974
• Cómo leer a Alejo Carpentier / Patrick Collard., 1991
• Construcción y lenguaje en Alejo Carpentier / Edmundo Gómez Mayo
• Conversación con Alejo Carpentier / Héctor Mujica;, 1975
• Conversación con Alejo Carpentier / Enrigue Sáinz;, 1980
• Diccionario de conceptos de Alejo Carpentier / Víctor Fowler., 2004
• Duno-Gottberg, Luis. 2003. "Solventando las diferencias: La ideología del mestizaje en Cuba", Iberoamericana – Frankfurt am Main, Vervuert, Madrid.
• El acá y el allá en la narrativa de Alejo Carpentier / Sixto Plaza., 1984
• El diálogo con la historia de Alejo Carpentier / Oscar Velayos Zurdo., 1985
• El "último" Carpentier / José Vila Selma., 1978
• Estudios carpenterianos / Sergio Chaple., 2004
• La narrativa de Alejo Carpentier : el concepto del tiempo como tema fundamental / Esther P Mocega-González., 1975
• Las últimas obras de Alejo Carpentier / Antonio Fama., 1995
• Lo barroco y lo real-maravilloso en la obra de Alejo Carpentier / Alexis Márquez Rodríguez., 1982
• Música y épica en la novela de Alejo Carpentier / Leonardo Acosta., 1981
• Música y escritura en Alejo Carpentier / Gabriel María Rubio Navarro., 1999
• Nuevas lecturas de alejo Carpentier / Alexis Márquez Rodríguez., 2004
• Para leer a Alejo Carpentier / Jorge Oscar Pickenhayn., 1978
• Realismo mágico y lo real maravilloso en El reino de este mundo y El siglo de las luces / Juan Barroso., 1977
• Recopilación de textos sobre Alejo Carpentier / Salvador Arias., 1977
• Un camino de medio siglo : Alejo Carpentier y la narrativa de lo real maravilloso / Leonardo Padura., 2002
• Un camino de medio siglo : Homenaje nacional al 70 aniversario de Alejo Carpentier / Jose Martí ., 1974