Écue-Yamba-O! — Premier roman afro-cubain d'Alejo Carpentier (1933)

Authors : Alejo Carpentier

Genres : roman

Original language : espagnol

Editions

  • Editorial Universal (La Havane, Cuba), 1933 es
  • Gallimard, coll. Du monde entier, 1988 fr
  • Ypsilon éditeur (roman + Lettres des Antilles), 2017 fr
  • Akal, coll. Narrativa Completa, 2010 es
    ISBN 9788446024453

Écue-Yamba-O! (1933)

First novel by Alejo Carpentier, Écue-Yamba-O! (or Ékoué-Yamba-Ó in French) is published for the first time in Mexico in 1933, when the author is only twenty-nine years old. The novel is set in Havana during the 1910s-1920s and recounts the life of the young black man Menegildo Cue, an orphan raised by an Afro-Cuban grandmother. Through Menegildo’s gaze, Carpentier describes the city of Havana as a symphony of sounds and smells: the jingle of carts, the rhythms of the rumba, the scents of the ocean and tropical streets.

This foundational novel, often classified in “magical realism” although Carpentier prefers the term lo real maravilloso americano, is considered one of the great early texts of the Latin American novel. Its style, blending naturalismo and surrealismo, will directly influence García Márquez and the entire generation of the 1960s.

Sources