Book Description
Widely known for his novels El reino de este mundo and Los pasos perdidos, the Swiss-born Cuban writer Alejo Carpentier incorporated music in his fiction extensively, for instance in titles, in analogies with musical forms, in scenes depicting performances, recordings and broadcasts, and in characters’ discussions of musical issues. Chornik’s study focuses on Carpentier’s writings from a musicological perspective, bridging intermediality and intertextuality through an examination of music as formative, as form, and as performed. The emphasis lies on the novels Los pasos perdidos, El acoso, Concierto barroco and La consagración de la primavera, and on his unknown essay Los orígenes de la música y la música primitiva, the repository of ideas for Los pasos perdidos, included here for the first time as facsimile and in English translation. Chornik’s study will appeal to scholars and students in literary studies, cultural studies, musicology and ethnomusicology, and to a specifically interdisciplinary readership.
