Novel
Paradiso
José Lezama Lima · 1966
Synopsis
The coming-of-age novel of José Cemí, from childhood to maturity, in pre-revolutionary Havana. It opens on a sick child in bed, then goes back to the past of his father, a colonel, and of his family; the father's death closes a happy cycle, an uncle initiates him into poetry, and desire and the literary vocation arrive. In the last chapters, tales from different periods interweave, like dreams.
Context
The only novel completed and published in his lifetime, the book stirred controversy for its homosexual scenes, especially its eighth chapter, and for its political ambivalence. The first Cuban edition is considered faulty: Julio Cortázar revised the text, with Lezama's agreement, for a Mexican edition. The characters return in Oppiano Licario, posthumous, in 1977. Didier Coste translated it at Seuil in 1971, Gregory Rabassa into English.
Who it is for
A long novel, with a baroque and learned syntax; it demands slow reading, available in French since 1971.
Prizes and reception
Biografías y Vidas writes that it established its author in Spanish American letters; Britannica stresses the influence of its style.
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