Which novel by Alejo Carpentier is set during the Haitian Revolution?

The novel by Alejo Carpentier set during the Haitian Revolution is The Kingdom of This World. Published in Spanish as El reino de este mundo in 1949, it follows Ti Noel, an enslaved man whose life spans the upheavals before, during, and after the revolution in Saint-Domingue.

The Haitian Revolution began in 1791 and culminated in Haiti’s independence from France in 1804. Carpentier blends documented figures and events—including Toussaint Louverture and Henri Christophe—with vodou beliefs, myth, and transformations. The result is historical fiction that presents the Caribbean world through what Carpentier called lo real maravilloso, or “the marvelous real.”

A common mix-up is The Kingdom of This World’s relationship to magic realism. Carpentier’s ideas helped shape the broader genre, but he described his own approach as rooted in the extraordinary realities of Latin American and Caribbean history rather than European surrealism. The book is also sometimes confused with Carpentier’s later novel Explosion in a Cathedral, which is set during the French Revolution and its aftermath.