Paradiso

José Lezama Lima (December 19, 1910 - August 8, 1976) was a Cuban writer and poet who is considered one of the most influential figures in Latin American literature. When Paradiso was first published in Cuba in 1966, it was hailed as a masterpiece of contemporary literature by such eminent writers as Julio Cortázar, Mario Vargas Llosa, and Emir Rodriguez Monegal. Written in an elaborately baroque style, the narrative follows the childhood and youth of José Cemí, and depicts many scenes which resonate with Lezama's own life as a young poet in Havana. Many of the characters reappear in Lezama's posthumous novel Oppiano Licario, which was published in Mexico in 1977. The novel relates Cemí's struggles with a mysterious childhood illness, describes the death of his father, and explores his homosexuality and literary sensibilities. He lives in the world of pre-Castro Havana, and the Cuban Revolution only appears as a secondary plot. Some of the later chapters incorporate narrative experiments in which several alternating stories, set during widely divergent eras and having no immediately apparent connection with José Cemí, are interwoven and eventually merged. Paradiso is a novel by Cuban writer José Lezama Lima, the only one completed and published during his lifetime. Written in an elaborately baroque style, the narrative follows the childhood and youth of José Cemí, and depicts many scenes which resonate with Lezama's own life as a young poet in Havana. Many of the characters reappear in Lezama's posthumous novel Oppiano Licario, which was published in Mexico in 1977. The novel relates Cemí's struggles with a mysterious childhood illness, describes the death of his father, and explores his homosexuality and literary sensibilities. He lives in the world of pre-Castro Havana, and the Cuban Revolution only appears as a secondary plot. Some of the later chapters incorporate narrative experiments in which several alternating stories, set during widely divergent eras and having no immediately apparent connection with José Cemí, are interwoven and eventually merged. (In a letter to Julio Cortázar, Lezama explained that these chapters represent Cemí's dreams after the death of his father.) Because of the graphic homosexual scenes and the novel's ambivalence towards the political situation of the day, Paradiso encountered controversy and publication problems. Today it is widely read in the Spanish-speaking world but has not achieved the same fame in English-speaking countries despite a translation by Gregory Rabassa. Despite having written one of the most accomplished novels in Cuba's history, Lezama said he never considered himself a novelist, but rather a poet who wrote a poem that became a novel. Paradiso can thus be considered a kind of long poem, just as well as a neo-baroque novel. First published in Cuba in 1966, Paradiso was hailed as a masterpiece of contemporary literature. It has gained the international reputation of a modern classic and was received with unqualified enthusiasm when it was published in France and Italy. Jose Cemi, the hero of Paradiso, begins life at the turn of the century in Cuba. As an adolescent, Cemi discovers his soulmates, the intellectuals Fronesis and Focion, and it is the triangle of their relationship which provides the impetus for much of the novel. Each of Cemi's experiences in his search for his dead father and for the understanding of love and the powers of the mind has a tropical intensity that gives it long life in the reader's memory. "A classic of modern literature, Paradiso was first published in Cuba in 1966. Written by Cuba's most important poet, it tells the story of Jose Cemi, who, in the wake of his father's death, comes of age in turn-of-the-century Cuba. Weaving the exhilarations and defeats of love into extraordinarily erotic verbal tapestries, Lezama Lima narrates Cemi's search for his dead father and for an understanding of love and the powers of the mind."--BOOK JACKET. "Tells the story of Jose Cemi, who, in the wake of his father's premature death, comes of age in turn-of-the-century Cuba."--Paperback cover