Alejo Carpentier

This was written between the stages of creating The Lost Steps and Explosion in a Cathedral, and Alejo Carpentier crafted it amidst his daily work in radio, advertising, and other professional endeavors. It reveals the diversity of his readings, the time he also dedicates to music amid his daily activities, as well as numerous anecdotes and connections with figures in culture and cherished friends. Among countless observations about his own literary work, confessions like this one appear:

"Yesterday and today, I work on the definitive version (definitive?) of The Lost Steps. When the idea for this novel struck me, in a lightning moment, one noon as I was taking a rental car back home, I imagined it would be a seven-chapter tale that I would write in twenty days. Starting it on December 7, 1949, I counted on having it finished by January. The book has grown to 40 chapters, and soon it will be two years (...)."