The crossing of the Atlantic and the Poetics of the Novels in Alejo Carpentier: Travels, Exchanges, Transfers

Abstract

There is a founding trajectory in the novels of A.  Carpentier: the crossing of the Atlantic. The journey  from  the old to the new world frames  a primordial dynamic: a dialogue of cultures, the  interculturalism  at  the center of  the  novelist’s  reflection and  imaginary.  This paper is an analysis  of  the fictional characters,  particularly  the  female  ones,  who,  on  their Atlantic crossings, undergo a metamorphosis;  it  focuses, as well, on the black characters who are the protagonists of these crossings. Special attention is given to the ideas which, too, cross the Atlantic, in particular the Baroque, which offered the American continent a new identity and new means of expressing its universality.