The Lost Steps

Alejo Carpentier, Adrian Nathan West, Leonardo Padura

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English

Penguin Classics
17 October 2023

Literature, Poetry & Criticism; Classic fiction (pre c 1945); Fantasy

Dissatisfied with his empty, Sisyphus-like existence in New York City, where he has abandoned his creative dreams for a job in corporate advertising, a highly cultured aspiring composer wants nothing more than to tear his life up from the root. He soon finds his escape hatch- a university-sponsored mission to South America to look for indigenous musical instruments in one of the few areas of the world not yet touched by civilization. Retracing the steps of time, he voyages with his lover into a land that feels outside of history, searching not just for music but ultimately for himself, and turning away from modernity toward the very heart of what makes us human.

For more than seventy-five years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 2,000 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.

The best-known book by Cuba's most important twentieth-century novelist, in its first new English translation in more than sixty years and featuring a new introduction by Leonardo Padura

A Penguin Classic

Dissatisfied with his empty, Sisyphus-like existence in New York City, where he has abandoned his creative dreams for a job in corporate advertising, a highly cultured aspiring composer wants nothing more than to tear his life up from the root. He soon finds his escape hatch- a university-sponsored mission to South America to look for indigenous musical instruments in one of the few areas of the world not yet touched by civilization. Retracing the steps of time, he voyages with his lover into a land that feels outside of history, searching not just for music but ultimately for himself, and turning away from modernity toward the very heart of what makes us human.

For more than seventy-five years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 2,000 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.

By: Alejo Carpentier
Introduction by: Leonardo Padura
Translated by: Adrian Nathan West
Imprint: Penguin Classics
Country of Publication: United Kingdom
Dimensions: Height: 197mm, Width: 130mm, Spine: 17mm
Weight: 205g
ISBN: 9780143133896
ISBN 10: 0143133896
Pages: 304
Publication Date: 17 October 2023
Audience: General/trade , ELT Advanced
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Active

Alejo Carpentier (1904-1980) was one of the major Latin American writers of the twentieth century, as well as a classically trained pianist and musicologist. His best-known novels are The Lost Steps, Explosion in a Cathedral, and The Kingdom of This World. Born in Lausanne, Switzerland, and raised in Havana, Cuba, Carpentier lived for many years in France and Venezuela before returning to Cuba after the 1959 revolution. A few years later he returned to France, where he lived until his death.

Reviews for The Lost Steps

“An erudite yet absorbing adventure story . . . A book full of riches—stylistic, sensory, visual.” —The New York Times Book Review “Extraordinary.” —The New Yorker “The greatest novel to have appeared in Latin America in our time.” —Le Figaro Littéraire “Beautiful and stirring . . . One of [Carpentier’s] finest works . . . which for many readers is the most alluring of his novels.” ―Leonardo Padura, from the Introduction