In the canon
The Kingdom of This World
- Form
- Form Novel
- Year
- Year 1949
- Originally in
- Originally in Spanish
- Pages
- Pages 180
In the square at Cap-Français a one-armed man is bound to a stake and set alight, and the thousands of slaves packed around the fire see him shed his shape and go free above their heads, while the whites see only a body burning and go home to dinner. Carpentier refuses to settle the question, and the prologue he attached to this short, ferocious novel explains why: in this part of the world, he argues, the marvelous need not be conjured, because it is simply what happened.
But man's greatness consists in the very fact of wanting to be better than he is.
The blurb, the gist, the why of the day and the work itself are in the app. The first button needs it on this device; the second gets it there.