THE KINGDOM OF THIS WORLD: THE NEW TRANSLATION

New York City, NY: Farrar Straus & Giroux, 2017. First Edition. First Printing.. Softcover. As New/No Dust Jacket, As Issued.. New York City, NY: Farrar Straus & Giroux, 2017. Softcover. As New/None, As Issued. First Edition/First Printing. 150 pages. New translation of the author's masterpiece. One of the greatest novels of the 20th century. Uncorrected Proof. The first appearance of the translation in published form. Precedes and should not be confused with the regular trade edition. Published in a small and limited one-time-only print run as a softcover original only for the exclusive use of the publisher. None of the copies was sold commercially. The Uncorrected Proof is now rare. Presents, in its earliest-state publication format, Alejo Carpentier's "El reino de este mundo". The definitive new translation by Pablo Medina, accompanied with an interesting Essay by the Haitian-American novelist Edwidge Danticat. "A few years after its liberation from harsh French colonial rule in 1803, Haiti endured a period of great brutality under the reign of King Henri Christophe, who was born a slave, but rose to become the first black King of the Western Hemisphere. Henri Christophe's oppressive rule is observed through the eyes of the elderly slave Ti Noel, who suffers abuse from masters both white and black" (Publisher's blurb). Alejo Carpentier himself described his novel as his attempt to capture "El maravilloso" ("The Marvellous") that is immanent in the Latin-American continent's reality, by creating a new style of writing and storytelling that go beyond Modernism, particularly Surrealism. The erudite and cosmopolitan Carpentier, who spent many years in Paris, repudiated the latter as exhausted at best, that Surrealist aesthetics could never capture the Latin-American experience adequately. His Prologue to "The Kingdom of This World" marks the very first time that the concept of Magical Realism, the dominant 20th-century literary tradition of Latin America, was articulated (in its entirety) as the answer to the crucial question: How does one capture a reality that already exceeds in its beauty and brutality anything that can be conjured, imagined, or conceived even by a genius? Garcia Marquez's "Cien Anos de Soledad" ("One Hundred Years of Solitude") made Magical Realism a global phenomenon. Garcia Marquez, to his credit, wrote that he would not have been able to write his epic masterpiece without Carpentier's elliptical, spare - nearly every Carpentier novel is little more than a hundred-plus pages - yet complex novel. An absolute "must-have" title for Alejo Carpentier collectors. This is a copy of the Uncorrected Proof. This title is a great book. As far as we know, this is the only copy of the Uncorrected Proof available online and is in especially fine condition: Clean, crisp, and bright. Please note: Copies available online have serious flaws, are in subsequent printings, or are remainder-marked. This is surely an accessible and lovely alternative. A rare copy thus. One of the greatest writers of the 20th century. A fine copy. (SEE ALSO OTHER ALEJO CARPENTIER TITLES IN OUR CATALOG). ISBN 0374537380.