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Ethnographic Surrealism: Authorship And Initiation In The Works Of Alejo Carpentier And Lydia Cabrera, Jonathan Torres

Dissidences

JT Torres

Ethnographic Surrealism: Authorship and Initiation

Abstract

This research examines the ways in which two writers, Alejo Carpentier and Lydia Cabrera, assume the roles of author and ethnographer to compose fictional works that also preserve elements of an oral tradition. That tradition is a literacy expressed by the Afro-Cuban drum. Both Carpentier and Cabrera incorporate percussive techniques within their prose to accomplish a mimesis that is just as important aesthetically as it is culturally. Relying mostly on primary sources—the works of Carpentier and Cabrera—and secondary criticism to expand and clarify their dual roles, this research explores how, as artists, …