The world and the kingdom: historicity and fictionalization in Alejo Carpentier's novel the kingdom of this world

Authors

  • Fábio Aristimunho Vargas Universidade Estadual do Oeste do Paraná

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.11606/issn.1676-6288.prolam.2017.139512

Keywords:

Historical fiction, Decolonization, Postcoloniality

Abstract

The novel El mundo de este mundo(1949), by Cuban writer Alejo Carpentier (1904-1980), is a work of historical fiction that portrays the French colony of Saint-Domingue in the XVIII century until the first decades of independent Haiti, introducing the style of narrative known as "marvelous real", which would greatly influence the XX century’s Latin American literature. Although the narrative does not mention dates or facts, it is possible to recognize and date the main events portrayed, as well as to identify certain real characters that appear in the plot. The present article seeks to uncover the historical elements referred to and fictionalized by Carpentier throughout his work, seeking to separate the (real) world of the realm (of fiction), in order to provide subsidies for a better understanding of the narrative. For this, this article analyzes the four parts of the book, contrasting the narrativewith historical facts and elements of the theory of historical fiction.

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Author Biography

  • Fábio Aristimunho Vargas, Universidade Estadual do Oeste do Paraná

    Doutor em Integração da América Latina pelo Prolam/USP. Mestre em Direito Internacional pela USP. Professor de Direito Internacional, Ciência Política e Língua Portuguesa.

Published

2018-04-02

Issue

Section

Artigos

How to Cite

Vargas, F. A. (2018). The world and the kingdom: historicity and fictionalization in Alejo Carpentier’s novel the kingdom of this world. Brazilian Journal of Latin American Studies, 16(31), 189-202. https://doi.org/10.11606/issn.1676-6288.prolam.2017.139512