Footprints of Alejo Carpentier in China

June 22, 2019

One of the few publications that has reached the public is a declassified memorandum from a meeting between President Mao Zedong and a delegation of 10 Cuban intellectuals on April 19, 1961. The group, led by Cuba's then Minister of Education, Armando Hart, included Alejo Carpentier, who was at that time director of the National Press. Here is included the brief exchange (translated from English) between Mao and Carpentier:

President Mao addresses Carpentier (Kaerbendiai, according to the transliteration from Mandarin to English): Your work consists of overseeing cultural activities.

Carpentier: Yes. I always wanted to buy your works, and I could never get them in France (but now) I find them in China.

President Mao: For your reference.

Abel Rosales Ginarte, Cuban journalist who works in China, began her search while working in the Spanish service of China Radio International (CRI), where she hosted the program "The Art of the Word," dedicated to Chinese and Ibero-American literature.

Slowly the investigation has grown and gained momentum in an unexpected way, because unknown translations of Carpentier into Chinese have begun to appear; she has met his translators and, most importantly, has found his legacy in a famous Chinese writer, who unfortunately passed away in 2016.

Just as Alejo wrote in his brief chronicle in "Tientos y diferencias," "we continue searching for what hides behind the dragon and the mask." Thus, she visited Nanjing University, where Alejo was and where, unfortunately, the Cultural Revolution left no trace of literary work. There are the corners of the city that impressed him so much and the famous Great Wall that he also visited. Each time I think I have finished something unexpected appears, as if Carpentier had become a mischievous child who refuses to confess all his secrets.

Perhaps China is revealing its mark to us with the deliberateness of a Taoist monk. The most striking thing was that a few months ago an Argentine friend who speaks Chinese—because all of this is only in Chinese—mentioned that the topic appeared in a literature class. That night the journalist could barely sleep; he had before his eyes photos of a book in Chinese, and knowledge of the language only allowed him to understand some characters. He then had to resort to the patience and passion of his friend to unravel how the Chinese writer Chen Zhongshi thanks Carpentier for having shown him how to use history at will to write a novel. In this case it is "The Plain of the White Deer," which as far as she knows has not been translated into English—it has been published in French, Vietnamese, Japanese, and Korean. In China it has been adapted into theater, cinema, opera… When he died, its author was one of the best-paid writers in China and one of the best in literary terms, according to experts in contemporary Chinese literature.

That's how we go, very carefully, with the certainty that at each step new stories will continue to emerge that demonstrate that Carpentier is the Cuban author with the most solid footprint in the Chinese literary world, just as he is in Hispanic American literature.