Essay Sample on Alejo Carpentier and His Work

Introduction

Alejo Carpentier, full names Alejo Carpentier y Valmont was born in Switzerland on December 26, 1904. His parents were Jorge Julian Carpentier an architect from France and mother, Lina Valmont who was a Russian language teacher. For years it has been believed that Carpentier was born in Havana, Cuba but after his death, his birth certificate was discovered in Switzerland. In 1912 the family traveled to Russia where Carpentier was able to perfect his French by attending school and read the works of Zola, Balzac, and Flaubert. After his parents divorced and father left, Carpentier who was 18 years old then had to leave his studies of Architecture from the University of Havana. He had to drop out of school to help support his mother.

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During this time, Carpentier studied music and worked in journalism where he wrote music reviews for La Discussion and Heraldo de Cuba as well as being an editor for the Carteles magazine. His journalistic work was regarded as leftist, and it helped in establishing the Cuban Communist Party. In 1927, he became the founding member of Revista de Avance with the help of his colleagues; Juan Marinello, Marti Casanovas, Jorge Manach, and Francisco Ichaso. The paper became the main voice of the Cuban movement, and it was dedicated to radicalism, nationalism, economics, education, and new ideas in the arts.

Carpentier began being suspected by the Cuban government due to his projects with reasons of him having ultramodern and subversive cultural ideas. In 1927, Carpentier was arrested for rebelling against the dictatorship of Gerardo Machado y Morales. Another reason for his arrest was that he had signed an anti-imperialist and democratic manifesto against the regime of the dictator and was handed a forty day stay in jail. During the stay in prison, he began writing his first novel, Ecue-Yamba-O which was an investigation of the Afro-Cuban traditions among the poor people on the island.

After Carpentier was released, he decided to exile in France which he did with the help of his friend a journalist, Robert Densos. He remained in Paris for eleven years before returning to Cuba. Upon his arrival, he began working on editorials and poems for the Cuban and Parisian magazines. Some of the magazines he wrote for in France were L'Intransigent and Documents as well as some short stories like Cahiers du Sud. His familiarity with the group of exiled Cubans; Comite de Jeunes Revolutionnaires Cubains influenced him to write his next book called the Homenaje a Nuestros amigos de Paris. He used the book to publish news about the group and their activities which were being published in a brochure known as La Terreur a Cuba.

Carpentier had the opportunity to meet with famous writers when in France. They included Pablo Picasso, Pablo Neruda, and Miguel Angel Asturias. Carpentier participated in other projects while in France other than literary works. He worked with composer Amadeo Roldain where he helped him organize the Cuban premiers of works by Poulenc and Stravinsky. He collaborated with Marins Francois Gaillard, a French composer on the musical Yamba-O 'a burlesque tragedy' which was presented in Paris at the Theatre Beriza.

Carpentier also worked in the film industry where he wrote contemporary culture in both French and Spanish; he also worked for a French radio station as a producer and sound technician. Carpentier also edited music and wrote texts for a French documentary known as Le Vaudou. Even though he was still abroad, Carpentier maintained his contacts with Cuba where he sent poems and articles to add to Havana Publications like the Ensayos Convergentes. In 1933, the Machado regime came to an end, and Carpentier ended his exile and returned to Cuba.

Carpentier made an important trip to Haiti in 1943 accompanied by the French theatrical director, Louis Jouvet. During the trip, he had the opportunity to visit the Palace of Sans-Souci and fortress of the Citadelle Laferrier which were both built by a black king called Henri Christophe. The journey to Haiti along with the readings of cyclical interpretation of history by Oswald Spegler inspired Carpentier to write his second novel, The Kingdom of this World (El Reino de Este Mundo) in 1949. Upon his return to Cuba, Carpentiere continued with his work as a journalist during the Second World War and managed to write on the history of the Cuban Music and got it published in 1946. The book was known as La musica en Cuba.

Carpentier went to live in Venezuela from 1945 to 1959, and there he got the inspiration to locate his next novel The Lost Steps in the unnamed South American country. During this time, he also wrote short stories that were collected in The War of Time (1958). When Carpentier was in Cuba, he went to a Santeria ceremony that was aimed to increase his interest in Afro-Cubanism. Carpentier then managed to complete his novel The Kingdom of this World in 1949, and it explains Carpentier's faith in Latin America's destiny and the artistic effects of its unique cultural heritage.

In 1959, Carpentier returned to Cuba after the communist revolution of Fidel Castro. He continued to write his baroque-style book, Explosion in a Cathedral as he worked for the State Publishing House. The novel talks about the enlightenment and ideas of the French revolution in the modern world. Some of the prizes that Carpentier won include; French Laureates Prix Medicis etranger in 1979 for his book called La Harpe et l'ombre, Prix Mondial Cino Del Duca in 1975, and in 1977 the Cervantes Prize.

There are three central themes that Carpentier used in his books; Lo real maravilloso, music, and ethnomusicology. Carpentier applied ethnomusicology and Afro-Cubanism as an academic way for him to study the origins of the Cuban music. As a result of this, he was able to publish the La Musica en Cuba that explored how the European music, transplanted the indigenous music of the island and African music when mixed creates the Cuban music. Carpentier dedicated most of his research in musicology to the Afro-Cuban influences that are in modern Cuba. In the ethnomusicological study, Carpentier poses an argument that the improvisation that can be seen in African influenced music allowed for different interpretations. These interpretations catalyzed differences in the regions followed by regional identity which is the reason why Cuba has a varied musical personality.

The Lo real maravilloso is a theme used by Carpentier where the theory states that the geography and history of Latin America are so extreme as to appear magical to outsiders. The theory was listed in the prologue of his book, The Kingdom of this World where he explained the vision of Lo real Maravilloso. Carpentier's approach and its appearance in his work are more restricted in their scope than is the magical realism as it is being interpreted by the critics who say the theory is synonymous and it contains magical realism. Mostly Carpentier writes about great features about the geography and history of Latin America which are facts, but are almost unbelievable.

Music was the third theme that Carpentier used in his books. He started learning music from a very young age and helped a lot when he wanted to write the study about the Cuban music. He collaborated with young musicians who were interested in exploring the roots of the Cuban music and one musician was Amedeo Roldan, who had a Cuban background but was French. These two individuals were mainly interested in incorporating African melodies and rhythms into their work and disregarded the copying of European musical styles.

Conclusion

Alejo Carpentier was born in Switzerland on December 26, 1904. His parents were Jorge Julian Carpentier an architect from France and mother, Lina Valmont who was a Russian language teacher. He had to drop out of school to help support his mother after his parent's marriage fell apart and his father left. During this time, Carpentier studied music and worked in journalism where he wrote music reviews for La Discussion and Heraldo de Cuba as well as being an editor for the Carteles magazine.

Carpentier began being suspected by the Cuban government due to his projects with reasons of him having ultramodern and subversive cultural ideas. In 1927, Carpentier was arrested for rebelling against the dictatorship of Gerardo Machado y Morales. After Carpentier was released, he decided to exile in France which he did with the help of his friend a journalist, Robert Densos. Carpentier had the opportunity to meet with famous writers when in France. They included Pablo Picasso, Pablo Neruda, and Miguel Angel Asturias.

Carpentier made an important trip to Haiti in 1943 accompanied by the French theatrical director, Louis Jouvet. The journey to Haiti along with the readings of cyclical interpretation of history by Oswald Spegler inspired Carpentier to write his second novel, The Kingdom of this World (El Reino de Este Mundo) in 1949. Carpentier went to live in Venezuela from 1945 to 1959, and there he got the inspiration to locate his next novel The Lost Steps in the unnamed South American country. When Carpentier was in Cuba, he went to a Santeria ceremony that was aimed to increase his interest in Afro-Cubanism. Carpentier then managed to complete his novel The Kingdom of this World in 1949.

Some of the prizes that Carpentier won include; French Laureates Prix Medicis etranger in 1979 for his book called La Harpe et l'ombre, Prix Mondial Cino Del Duca in 1975, and in 1977 the Cervantes Prize. There are three main themes that Carpentier used in his books; Lo real maravilloso, music, and ethnomusicology. Carpentier used ethnomusicology and Afro-Cubanism as an academic way for him to study the origins of the Cuban music. The Lo real maravilloso is a theme used by Carpentier where the theory states that the geography and history of Latin America are so extreme as to appear magical to outsiders. Music was the third theme that Carpentier used in his books and was mainly interested in incorporating African melodies and rhythms into their work and disregarded the copying of European musical styles.

The experiences of Carpentier shaped his life and inspired him to write some of the best work that the society has appreciated and learned a lot from. His passion for music made it possible for him to find out the origins of the Cuban music and to encourage his fellow countrymen to stop imitating the European music styles but to embrace theirs.