Kingdom of This World

A masterful new translation of a haunting novel of nineteenth-century Haiti

A few years after its liberation from harsh French colonial rule in 1803, Haiti endured a period of great brutality under the reign of King Henri Christophe, who was born a slave but rose to become the first black king in the Western Hemisphere. In this unnerving novel from one of Cuba’s most celebrated authors, Henri Christophe’s oppressive rule is observed through the eyes of the elderly slave Ti Noël, who suffers abuse from masters both white and black. As he ranges across the country searching for true liberation, Ti Noël navigates bloody revolutions, maniacal rulers with false visions of grandeur, and the mysterious power of voodoo magic.

First published in English translation in 1957, The Kingdom of This World is now widely recognized as a masterpiece of Cuban and Caribbean literature.

Artist Fabiola Jean-Louis recommended The Kingdom of This World as contextual reading for her exhibition Waters of the Abyss: An Intersection of Spirit and Freedom, on view at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum from February 18 - June 16, 2025.

By Alejo Carpentier with introduction by Edwidge Danticat
160 pages
Published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2017
Paperback
5.5 x 0.4 x 8.25 inches