A Cuban Master on the Dangers of Revolution
A new translation revives Alejo Carpentier’s classic novel about the betrayal of promises for Caribbean liberation.
This article is adapted from AQ's special report on A (Relatively) Bullish Case for Latin America “This, too, has come with us, then,” says one of the protagonists of Alejo Carpentier’s Explosion in a Cathedral, referring to the guillotine being assembled aboard a ship bound from revolutionary France to the Caribbean colony of Guadeloupe. “Naturally,” replies Victor Hugues, the novel’s version of a historically real French merchant turned military man. “This, and the printing press, are the most important cargo we have, apart from the cannons.” First published in...
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