Explosion in a Cathedral

A tour de force … built around the exciting and timely theme of revolutionary-turned-tyrant * The New York Times Book Review *Not an ordinary historical novel, but rather a poetic, highly informed essay … in rich prose, a host of memorable impressions … Splendidly written * Kirkus Reviews *What does this novel have to tell us about colonialism, globalization, feminism, human rights, the rights of nature, transculturation, migration, war? … Explosion in a Cathedral continues to accompany us, to question us, to challenge and move us, and ultimately to help us in the arduous and terrible exercise of reading the world – Alejandro Zambra * The Paris Review *

Alejo Carpentier (1904-1980) was one of the major Latin American writers of the twentieth century, as well as a classically trained pianist and musicologist. His best-known novels are The Lost Steps, Explosion in a Cathedral, and The Kingdom of This World. Born in Lausanne, Switzerland, and raised in Havana, Cuba, Carpentier lived for many years in France and Venezuela before returning to Cuba after the 1959 revolution. A few years later he returned to France, where he lived until his death.

Adrian Nathan West (translator) has translated more than thirty books from Spanish, Catalan, and German, including Benjamin Labatut’s When We Cease to Understand the World, a finalist for both the National Book Award for Translated Literature and the International Booker Prize. He is the author of The Aesthetics of Degradation and the novel My Father’s Diet, and his essays and literary criticism have appeared in The New York Review of Books, London Review of Books, The Times Literary Supplement, and The Baffler. He lives in Philadelphia.

Alejandro Zambra (foreword) is the award-winning author of the novels Chilean Poet, Ways of Going Home, The Private Lives of Trees, and Bonsai, as well as two other works of fiction- Multiple Choice and My Documents. His short stories have been published in The New Yorker, The New York Times Magazine, The Paris Review, Granta, and Harper’s Magazine. Born in Santiago, Chile, Zambra lives in Mexico City.