As antechambers of the remembrance to Carpentier, German and French editorial houses have published re-editions and fictional essays of the Cuban author recently translated.

The German editorial house Suhrkamp translated the essay bookVision of America under the title Farben eines Kontinents (Colours of a Continent), translated by Anneliese Botond, and Ulrich Kunzmann. The volume contains a folder of beautiful illustrations from Angel’s Fall, The Great Sabana, and Sierra Nevada National Park from Venezuela; of Monte Albán, in Oaxaca, México; the Quetzal Palace, Teotihuacán, also in México; a Maya temple in Tikal, Guatemala and other images of exceptional beauty in our America, many of which are referred to in Carpentier´s essays published in Cuba under the original title of Vision of America.

On its behalf, the French editorial house Gallimard re-edited Le partage des eaux( The Partition of Waters) the original title with which it was known in France The Lost Steps, a novel chosen as the best foreign book of the year when it was first translated in French.

At that moment, André Rousseau declared in Le Fígaro Litteraire: “His play has a deep meaning within contemporary literature, is the best novel given to us by Latin America in theses years”. The first edition of The Lost Steps was printed in Mexico, in 1953. Of the play the renowned critic Robert Church in the London New Chronicle asserted: “This book can easily compete with Moby Dick and the Feathered Snake. It goes beyond literature”.

In the present edition from Gallimard editorial house it is said: “After reading Le partage des eaux, the word ´talent´ is not enough, our enthusiasm with it would not match its quality. A great poet has come between us for his style, his culture, his abundance of images and elevated thoughts and the continuity of his inspiration”. (Max—Pol Fouchet).

Gallimard editorial house who has published 12 of the most important plays of Carpentier, presented in this occasion Essais Littéraires (Literary Essays) in Arcades collection. This play, divided in three parts, comprises 40 essays of the author written between 1927 and 1977. The last piece of writing, the text read by Alejo Carpentier at Alcalá de Henares, Spain, at the time of accepting Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra Award in1978.

Granma (Translated by Cubasi)