El reino de este mundo / The Kingdom of this World

Alejo Carpentier was a Cuban writer who straddled the connection between European literature and the native culture of Latin-America. The Kingdom of This World is a marvelously compressed account of the slave uprising and first revolution of the early nineteenth century in San Domingo now Haiti. Carpentier uses magical realism, long before it became fashionable, to depict the contradictions between political reality and religious or mythical beliefs. The story passes rapidly in a series of vivid scenes from the early unsuccessful uprising led by Macandal, then Bouckman who led Haiti in its fight for independence from France, and finally to Henri Christophe the revolutionary leader who later became Emperor of Haiti, and who built Sans Souci and La Ferrire Citadel.