The Story Archive

Journey Back to the Source

Alejo Carpentier · 1944 CE · Short Story · Caribbean · Contemporary

Workmen pull down a Havana mansion, and when the last stone is down an old black servant waves his stick over the rubble and the house stands again. From that moment the life of the Marques de Capellanias runs backwards, out of the deathbed and through the marriage, the seminary and the nursery, furniture and language and knowledge unlearning themselves in step. Written as Carpentier was formulating lo real maravilloso, it is his most anthologised short work.

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