Alejo Carpentier

In 1947, Carpentier embarked on a journey through the Great Savannah of America, which would prove decisive for his personal and artistic development. Without this journey, it is difficult to conceive several of the Latin American essence texts gathered in this volume, which is, above all, a unique travel chronicle, the astonished testimony of a genius who discovers his American identity in places like the Andean paramo, the Venezuelan jungles, pre-Columbian ruins, or the shores of the Caribbean. With dazzling prose, Carpentier recreates the initiatory experience through chronicles, talks, speeches, and articles written over thirty years in the embrace of the great America.