The Kingdom of This World: A Novel

Written by the Cuban Alejo Carpentier (1904-1980), this novel’s literary genre is that one of “the marvelous real” –often mixed up with the magical realism (made famous by Horacio Quiroga in the first place and achieving its greatest fame with Gabriel García Márquez), even though the differences are remarkable–, which was created by Carpentier himself. In the prologue the author gives a passionate explanation of his view of the genre –text on which the definition we nowadays have is based– ending it with a question in which he confesses to the reader what he thinks is the projection of the genre in the material. The aforementioned question if the following: “What, after all, is the history of the Americas but a chronicle of the marvelous real?” America’s history if then, to Carpentier, the clearest expression of the genre, as the natural finds itself interlaced with the supernatural.The novel tells about the Haitian revolution from a closer view concentrated on the life of the black slaves and their repeated misfortunes when falling time and again in the hands of dictators. The tale is faithful to the historical facts but, which is precisely what gets it to be marvelous real, mixes up inherently with the blacks’ believes and superstitions, making something wonderful out of reality. The story mentions characters such as Henri Christophe, Paulina Bonaparte and General LeClerc, whose existence have being confirmed. Yet there are those who play important parts whose existence are though doubted such as, for instance, Mackandal; a controversial character who’s inseparably accompanied of the rumours created by the people, believers in his supernaturality and, of course, convinced of his existence.Widely accepted by the critics, this work is one of the most important ones in the Spanish-American literature and of compulsory reading for the student of its history.