Which Cuban author wrote 'The Kingdom of This World'?

The Cuban author who wrote The Kingdom of This World is Alejo Carpentier.

Carpentier originally published the novel in Spanish as El reino de este mundo in 1949. The historical novel is set in Haiti before, during, and after the Haitian Revolution, which began in 1791 and culminated in Haitian independence in 1804. Its central character, Ti Noël, witnesses upheavals involving slavery, colonial rule, revolution, and dictatorship.

Carpentier’s 1943 visit to Haiti strongly influenced the book. He encountered landmarks associated with King Henri Christophe, including the Citadelle Laferrière and the Sans-Souci Palace. Those sites helped shape his vision of the Caribbean’s history as both politically real and filled with extraordinary cultural and spiritual dimensions.

A common mix-up is to associate the novel with Gabriel García Márquez because both writers are linked with magical realism. Carpentier instead described his approach as lo real maravilloso, or “the marvelous real,” arguing that the history and cultures of Latin America and the Caribbean already contained marvels that did not need European-style invention. The first English translation appeared in 1957.