Revealing literary manuscript found in Cuba

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A University of Manchester researcher has unearthed a text by Alejo Carpentier, the Cuban writer who invented magic realism in literature and exerted a decisive influence on Gabriel García Márquez and Isabel Allende, among other famous Latin American writers.

The text, entitled ‘The Origins of Music and Primitive Music’, was accidentally found by Dr Katia Chornik in an archive of Carpentier’s unpublished materials in Havana.

The manuscript is the direct antecedent of Carpentier’s most famous novel, The Lost Steps (1953), which narrates the journey through space and time of an unnamed musicologist-composer who discovers the origins of music in South America, among members of an indigenous community untouched by civilization.

The complete facsimile of the text and Dr Chornik’s English translation are part of her recently published book Alejo Carpentier and the Musical Text, which will be launched on 23 November at the Instituto Cervantes in London.

The event will include a presentation by Dr Chornik, followed by live Cuban music by Son Yambu. This is the last event of a year-long series on winners of the Cervantes Prize, the most prestigious award in Spanish-language literature. Alejo Carpentier was the first Latin American to win this award.

Dr Chornik specialises in music and literature, music and human rights, and Latin American popular music. Details of her work can be found here.
 

Background information

Carpentier was born in Switzerland in 1904 to French and Russian parents, and moved to Cuba as a young child. During the inter-war years he lived in Paris, where he became closely involved with the avant-gardes, particularly with members of the Surrealist movement. Following the Cuban Revolution, he took on high-rank official posts, working as a diplomat in Paris until his death in 1980.

In parallel to his literary work, Carpentier had an intensive activity in music. He co-wrote musical pieces with Darius Milhaud, Edgard Varèse and other noted composers, and had a long career as a music critic, radio producer and concert promoter of avant-garde music. Carpentier incorporated music in his fiction extensively, more than any other Latin American writer of his time.

Details of the event

23 November 2015 at 6:30pm
Instituto Cervantes’s auditorium
102 Eaton Square, London SW1W 9AN

Reserve your seat at reservas.londres@cervantes.es. 
 

The event is co-organised by the Instituto Cervantes and the Embassy of Spain.