by Serdzhan Ibryam Hasan
Introduction
Magical realism, a literary mode in which supernatural or extraordinary events are presented as ordinary parts of everyday reality, is often understood not only as a literary genre but also as a political strategy for engaging with a history marked by violence, erasure, and silence. Dominican-American writer Junot Díaz, whose fiction frequently explores the impacts of colonialism, migration, and violence in the Caribbean, describes magical realism as a “political tool” that enables Caribbean people to “see things clearly” despite the legacy of colonial trauma and displacement. In Hispanic Caribbean literature, a key example of the political use of magical realism is Cuban writer Alejo Carpentier, one of the major figures of twentieth-century Latin American literature. His interest in Haiti and the Haitian Revolution was closely connected to his broader concern with recovering the history, traditions, and cultural practices of the Americas that had been marginalised by European perspectives. The Kingdom of This World, published in 1949, reflects this interest by revisiting the Haitian Revolution through the experiences of those traditionally excluded from official histories. Set in revolutionary Saint-Domingue at the turn of the nineteenth century, the novel follows the enslaved Ti Noël through French colonial rule, the Macandal revolt, and the rise and fall of Henri Christophe’s kingdom after independence (Hoehling 254).
Published in 1949, The Kingdom of This World remains, as Lizabeth Paravisini-Gebert observes, “the only sustained account of the Haitian Revolution in Spanish-Caribbean literature” (115). Rather than simply narrating historical events, Carpentier reconstructs the revolution through a fragmented narrative that centres the lived experiences of those who endured slavery, revolt, and its aftermath. Through Ti Noël’s perspective, the novel shifts attention away from official historical accounts and toward the embodied realities of colonial violence. In this way, Carpentier participates in what Paravisini-Gebert describes as a broader effort to recover “history and tradition” and to develop “an autonomous American consciousness” (115). Here, “American” refers to the cultural and historical realities of the Americas rather than to the United States: Carpentier seeks to represent the New World through its own histories, traditions, and cultural practices rather than through European frameworks. In The Kingdom of This World, this project is particularly visible in the novel’s attention to Haitian history, African-derived spiritual practices, and the experiences of enslaved people.
Importantly, Carpentier interprets Haitian history through his concept of lo real maravilloso (the marvellous real) which differentiates the marvellous from fantasy by grounding it in the material, spiritual, and historical realities of the Americas. Unlike European Surrealism, which aims for the extraordinary through artistic invention, lo real maravilloso arises from lived experience and collective belief. Carpentier writes in the prologue to the novel, “the marvellous begins to be unmistakably marvellous when it arises from an unexpected alteration of reality” (86). This concept of the marvellous is closely linked to Haiti’s revolutionary landscape and the prevailing influence of Vodou, whose cosmology challenges Western distinctions between body and spirit, as well as reason and belief. For instance, Ti Noël observes that Maman Loi remains entirely composed and that her arms exhibit “no sign of blister or burn” when she immerses them in a pot of boiling oil (Carpentier 15). The story depicts this incident as a part of the spiritual realm that Macandal, Maman Loi, and Ti Noël occupy rather than explaining it as impossible or presenting it as a supernatural exception. In this regard, the scene makes Carpentier’s concept of the fantastic tangible: what, from a Western rationalist standpoint, seems physically impossible becomes a recognised aspect of the characters’ everyday lives.
As Oralia Preble-Niemi observes, the marvellous in Carpentier’s work emerges from the perspective of the “outcast classes,” whose beliefs and experiences challenge forms of knowledge excluded by colonial rationality. This perspective is particularly important in The Kingdom of This World, where the spiritual practices of enslaved Black characters are not presented as irrational superstition but as part of their understanding of reality. Similarly, Paravisini-Gebert’s observation that Carpentier depicts a “seamless flow between the life of the body and the life of the spirit” (115) helps explain how Vodou shapes the novel’s representation of resistance. Rather than separating physical experience from spiritual belief, Carpentier brings the two together, allowing the marvellous to emerge from the lived reality of the enslaved community.
While the colonial regime seeks to reduce Black subjects to bodily suffering through slavery, punishment, and forced labour, lo real maravilloso provides the reader with an alternative space for spiritual survival and political agency. In The Kingdom of This World, Carpentier employs spiritual transformation, Vodou, and the collective memory of the enslaved Black community to challenge the violence inflicted on Black bodies under colonial rule. However, the novel complicates this liberatory potential by illustrating how Henri Christophe’s (Haiti’ self-proclaimed president and king) post-revolutionary regime reproduces similar forms of bodily domination in his attempt to copy a European feudal monarchy. Therefore, this reading questions whether lo real maravilloso can offer genuine liberation or instead exposes the persistence of colonial violence even after political independence.
Beyond Magical Realism: Carpentier’s Lo Real Maravilloso and Caribbean Resistance
To examine The Kingdom of This World, it is essential to distinguish Carpentier’s idea of lo real maravilloso from the broader concept of magical realism. While the two concepts are sometimes utilised interchangeably, Carpentier saw lo real maravilloso not just as a literary technique, but as a way to express the unique qualities found in Latin American and Caribbean reality. As Oralia Preble-Niemi explains, Carpentier created the term to describe “the supernatural qualities of Latin American reality” (101), stating that “the prodigy, the marvel, the magic is in the surrounding reality itself, in that which is tangible of the American world” (101). In this sense, lo real maravilloso does not mean that magic is real, but that reality itself is magical. In contrast to magical realism, which depicts extraordinary happenings as commonplace, lo real maravilloso makes a stronger claim about the nature of reality: it suggests that the marvellous already exists within the historical and cultural reality of the Americas. Thus, the marvellous is not an invention of the author; instead, it emerges from lived experience, historical memory, and shared beliefs. The distinction becomes clear in Carpentier’s treatment of Macandal’s transformation. When Macandal disappears during his execution and the enslaved community believes that he has transformed into a mosquito, the narrative does not clearly separate this event into “real” and “supernatural” explanations. The transformation is accepted within the spiritual worldview of the enslaved community, while the colonial authorities understand only that Macandal has been executed. The marvellous therefore emerges from the characters’ understanding of their historical and spiritual reality rather than being presented as an extraordinary event imposed upon that reality by the author.
Preble-Niemi further characterises magical realism as the “perception of magic and its acceptance as a normal fact” (102). This distinction is significant because Carpentier does not create a separate magical realm; rather, he depicts a reality shaped by beliefs and traditions that Western rationalism often disregards. This view of the marvellous is very different from European literary traditions like Surrealism, which Carpentier criticised for depending on artificial or “prefabricated” (101) surprises. Instead, lo real maravilloso is grounded in Jean Franco’s idea that American reality “is of a different order from that of Europe” (qtd. in Preble-Niemi 101). This difference matters especially in Haiti, where the marvellous is deeply tied to African-based spiritual systems such as Vodou. Unlike European traditions that separate body and spirit, or reason and faith, Vodou allows what Paravisini-Gebert describes as a “seamless flow between the life of the body and the life of the spirit” (115). For Carpentier, this spiritual outlook offers a new way to view both history and resistance. The marvellous comes from shared beliefs, rituals, and knowledge rooted in the lived experiences of enslaved Black people, not from invention or fiction.
The Violated Body and the Marvelous Real: Macandal’s Transformation as Resistance
The Kingdom of This World explores colonial power by focusing on how it oppresses and commodifies the Black body. Before introducing the transformative idea of lo real maravilloso, Carpentier shows how the plantation system turns enslaved people into little more than tools or objects of exploitation. This violence is made clear through the character of Macandal, a Mandingue slave whose body is treated as if it were simply a part of the machinery of production.
In the opening scene, Macandal’s hand is caught in the rollers of a sugar mill, demonstrating how the machinery consumes his body. The novel describes this moment in graphic detail: “Macandal’s left hand had been caught with the cane by the sudden tug of the rollers, which had dragged in his arm up to the shoulder” (Carpentier 13). As the machine crushes his arm, his blood becomes part of the colonial economy: “An eye of blood began to widen in the pan catching the juice” (13). The image collapses the distinction between Macandal’s body and the sugar he is forced to produce: his blood literally enters the pan alongside the cane juice, turning his physical suffering into part of the plantation’s production process. Macandal’s injury therefore reveals how slavery treats the Black body not as an individual human life, but as a source of labour and production.
After losing his arm in the sugar mill, Macandal becomes a problem for the plantation because his injured body can no longer perform the same labour. Carpentier describes how “with his right hand he was trying to move an elbow, a wrist that no longer obeyed him” (13). The phrase “no longer obeyed him” emphasises Macandal’s loss of control over his own body. At the same time, the injury changes his value within the plantation system: the body that was expected to work is now impaired and must be assigned a different function. Rather than recognising his injury as suffering that demands care, the plantation responds to it according to its productive needs. Macandal’s experience therefore reveals how slavery treats the Black body as a form of labour whose value is measured by its usefulness to production.
After his injury, Macandal is assigned to care for cattle. This brings him closer to nature and allows him to learn about “the secret life of strange species given to disguise, confusion, and camouflage” (Carpentier 14). At this point, his spiritual and symbolic transformation begins. Learning from animals that can disguise themselves, Macandal discovers forms of resistance that go beyond the limits of his injured body. He uses his understanding of toxic plants to undermine colonial power, turning his physical loss into a new kind of strength. This way Macandal is not defined only by his suffering. What was once a wound now becomes a source of political and spiritual resistance. From this view, Carpentier introduces lo real maravilloso as a new path for resistance.
Macandal’s growing influence among the enslaved eventually leads the colonial authorities to capture him and sentence him to death. His execution is deliberately made public, as the authorities hope that witnessing his punishment will destroy the belief in his power and discourage further rebellion. Colonial officials gather the enslaved people to witness his death, attempting to make Macandal’s body an example to those influenced by him. In spite of their effort, Macandal transcends his physical form through the collective belief of those watching. Carpentier writes, “When the moment came, the bonds of the Mandingue, no longer possessing a body to bind, would trace the shape of a man in the air for a second before they slipped down the post” (29). While colonial authorities believe they have destroyed him, the enslaved witnesses see something else. To them, Macandal survives: “Macandal, transformed into a buzzing mosquito, would light on the very tricorne of the commander of the troops to laugh at the dismay of the whites” (29). The scene reframes how lo real maravilloso challenges colonial power. The enslaved community sees spiritual continuity and resistance, while the masters see only death. Macandal’s flight becomes a shared declaration that colonial violence cannot fully erase what it tries to control. It is not just about one man’s survival, but about the enduring spirit of a whole community.
According to Junot Diaz, magical realism is a political tool. This becomes clear in how differently people see Macandal’s transformation. For marginalised communities, magical realism allows them to look beyond the apparent finality of colonial violence. What matters most is not whether Macandal’s change is a literal transformation or a product of collective belief, but the meaning it holds for the community. Carpentier intentionally keeps the transformation unclear, balancing it between a real event and what people believe. This lets the marvellous appear through how the community sees it, not through proven facts. Annaliese Hoehling calls this “the minoritarian potential of lo real maravilloso” (256)—a type of marvellous reality that challenges European ideas of what is rational and opens up new ways of understanding history.
In the novel, Carpentier shows that the marvellous real is not about escaping reality, but about surviving it. He shifts the focus from Macandal’s physical suffering to the faith and unity of the enslaved community. Through their shared belief, the community transforms Macandal’s violated body into a lasting symbol of resistance and revolutionary memory. Carpentier thus rewrites Haitian history from the perspective of individuals excluded from official archives, prioritising the beliefs and experiences of the enslaved community over colonial narratives of historical actuality. This collective conviction symbolically reclaims the violated body from colonial erasure.
Independence without Freedom: Henri Christophe and the Reproduction of Colonial Violence
The idea of liberation becomes more complex in the second half of the novel. Carpentier shows that gaining political independence from Europe does not automatically end the violence faced by Black people. Through the rise of Henri Christophe, the novel reveals how the harm of colonial rule can persist even after formal emancipation.
After years away, Ti Noël returns to the Plaine du Nord, in northern Haiti, where Henri Christophe has established his kingdom, and is surprised to find a royal court composed entirely of Black people.He notices, “those footmen in white wigs, whose golden buttons were being inspected by a butler in green livery, were Negroes” (Carpentier 61). The wigs serve as visual representations of imported European authority, implying that imitation rather than radical change is the foundation of Christophe’s monarchy. At first, this seems like a sign of the revolution’s success. Yet Ti Noël soon realises that the new government has simply borrowed the appearance and structure of the old colonial regime. The image of Christophe’s court reminds Ti Noël of an earlier moment in a French barber’s shop, where he saw “the four wax heads” and noticed that “the curls of the wigs… framed expressionless faces” (7). This parallel reveals that even with the change in leadership, the hierarchy and symbols remain almost the same. By copying the outward signs of European power, Christophe’s dictatorship begins to repeat the very system it once sought to overthrow.
Once again, the weight of a new political system falls on the Black community. Christophe orders the construction of the Citadel La Ferrière to defend his kingdom from foreign threats, forcing his people to work under conditions that closely resemble slavery. Ti Noël joins “a long procession of children, pregnant girls, women, and old men, each of whom carried a brick” (Carpentier 62). This powerful image shows how the entire community is subjected to exhausting labour. The inclusion of old people, children, and pregnant women indicates that state authority affects not only individual workers but the entire social body.
Black bodies are disciplined in the name of state power, and the task of hauling materials up the mountain turns freedom into another form of control. Towering above them is “that second mountain—a mountain on a mountain—which was the Citadel La Ferrière” (Carpentier 62). The citadel stands as a massive symbol of Christophe’s ambitions, built on the exhaustion and pain of his people.
When Ti Noël arrives at the Citadel, Carpentier uses the weapons surrounding it to underscore the continuity of violence under Christophe’s rule. Ti Noël notices “a Spanish cannon whose barrel bore the melancholy inscription Fiel pero desdichado (“Faithful though unfortunate”) ; and several of larger bore and more ornate barrel, stamped with the seal of the Sun King, insolently proclaiming his Ultima Ratio Regum (“the final argument of kings”) (Carpentier 64). These imported weapons carry deep symbolic meaning. Christophe surrounds himself with the same military hardware and royal symbols once used by European monarchs, suggesting that the post-revolutionary state is beginning to mirror colonial power. This sense of continuity is underscored by the Latin phrase Ultima Ratio Regum, often linked to royal authority and military force. Even after achieving independence, Black people are still subjected to hard labour and coercion to maintain the new regime’s power.
According to Paravisini-Gebert, Christophe’s regime demonstrates how post-revolutionary leaders often struggle to imagine a future that truly breaks from the plantation economy (122). Formerly enslaved people are pushed back into hard labour and physical exhaustion, but now under Black overseers. Carpentier’s depiction of Ti Noël’s disappointment highlights that, although independence has changed who holds power, the revolution has not really changed the system itself. Black people are still forced to endure suffering to support the ambitions of the new state.
The novel draws a clear line between the spiritual practices connected to Mackandal’s resistance and those linked to Christophe’s rule. Earlier in the novel, Vodou and collective religion help the enslaved community find solidarity and hope, giving them a way to imagine freedom from colonial rule. Under Christophe, however, some spiritual practices became part of the state’s authority. For example, the sacrifice of bulls and mixing their blood into the Citadel’s mortar transforms ritual into a tool for political power, rather than a symbol of community resistance. Through this contrast, Carpentier points out the limits of lo real maravilloso. While the marvellous real can encourage revolutionary resistance, it cannot by itself prevent the return of oppression. The novel ultimately suggests that political freedom is not enough if the systems that control and exhaust Black people remain in place after independence.
Conclusion
The Kingdom of This World presents lo real maravilloso as a way to understand a history marked by violence, displacement, and survival rather than merely a literary style. Carpentier uses Mackandal’s transformation, Vodou ceremonies, and the shared faith of the enslaved community to show how resistance can challenge colonial efforts to strip Black people of their humanity. Through the marvellous real, oppressed individuals keep their memories, spirituality, and sense of agency alive, even in a world shaped by domination.
However, the novel also makes it clear that liberation is neither simple nor complete. Carpentier demonstrates that the logic of colonial power can survive even after official colonial rule ends. This is seen in the rise of Henri Christophe. Systems of forced labour, hierarchy, and strict discipline still shape daily life, even when political leadership changes. In this way, the novel reflects how violence can persist within a postcolonial state and complicate the promise of revolution. Instead of offering an idealised vision of freedom, The Kingdom of This World highlights the tension between spiritual resistance and real-world oppression. Carpentier’s use of lo real maravilloso becomes both a way to survive and a reminder that political independence alone cannot fully erase the legacy of colonial brutality.
Serdzhan Ibryam Hasan is currently pursuing a Research Master’s in Literary Studies at the University of Amsterdam. His academic interests include gender and feminism in relation to revisionist myth-making; queer studies, particularly queer gothic theory and its relation to the uncanny and abjection; and monstrosity studies, with a focus on how cultural constructions of the monstrous intersect with questions of identity, power, and representation.
References
Carpentier, Alejo. The Kingdom of This World. Translated by Harriet de Onís, Collier Books, 1957.
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Hoehling, Annaliese. “Minoritarian ‘Marvelous Real’: Enfolding Revolution in Alejo Carpentier’s The Kingdom of This World.” Journal of Postcolonial Writing, vol. 54, no. 2, 2018, pp. 254–267. doi:10.1080/17449855.2017.1403362.
Elie, Paul. “Gabriel García Márquez’s One Hundred Years of Solitude and the History Behind It.” 9 Dec. 2015. The Secret History of One Hundred Years of Solitude | Vanity Fair
Paravisini-Gebert, Lizabeth. “The Haitian Revolution in Interstices and Shadows: A Re-Reading of Alejo Carpentier’s ‘The Kingdom of This World.’” Research in African Literatures, vol. 35, no. 2, 2004, pp. 114–27. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/3821348. Accessed 26 May 2026.
Preble-Niemi, Oralia. “Magical Realism and the Great Goddess in Two Novels by Alejo Carpentier and Alice Walker.” The Comparatist, vol. 16, 2012, pp. 101–14.
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