• Submitted by: Luis Manuel Mazorra
• Culture and Traditions
• 03 / 18 / 2012

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At 50 years after the publication of the novel The Age of Enlightenment by Alejo Carpentier met in Havana since last Tuesday 13 to Friday 16 Cubans and foreign scholars traced their itineraries textual and intertextual.

The meeting brought exegetes as Professor Dieter Ingenschay, Humboldt University in Berlin, Charlotte W. Rogers, of the house of George Manson higher learning as well as Carmen Vasquez and Patricia Perez of the French universities of Nantes and Picardy, respectively, announced the hosts of the Alejo Carpentier Foundation.

Participants also included experts from universities Cuban nationals, the Casa de las Americas and the host institution, located in Stonehouse Street in Old Havana.

The experts came from various angles, the theoretical holy grail of the conference: "The new Latin American novel half a century of the Age of Enlightenment."

Thus, the influences of this work, as the irradiated fragments after the explosion of a cathedral, as the allegory of the French Revolution included in the novel-plot, were examined during the three days.

The 1789-French epic backdrop of the argument, and literary appropriation in the Caribbean world, the contradictions in the Carpentier look to Europe, the multiplicity symbolism and semantics of the "Machine"-guillotine-theater party and in this novel these are some of the issues that focus the attention of scholars.

The City Historian of Havana, Eusebio Leal Spengler, will be responsible for the opening words of the event.