‘Lo Real Maravilloso’
CARPENTIER, Alejo.
El Reino de este mundo (relato). Lima, Talleres Gráficos Torres Aguirres, [1959].
8vo, pp. 122, [8 (advertisements, colophon)]; somewhat spotted; in the original printed wrappers, some discoloration.
Carpentier’s second novel, re-published on the occasion of the ‘1er Festival del Libro Cubano’ in 1959. First published in Mexico in 1949, the novel treats slave uprisings in eighteenth-century Haiti. The original introduction (reprinted here) contains the first mention of the concept of ‘magic realism’, ‘lo real maravilloso’.