Carol Christensen Knihy

Exploring the consequences of the European discovery of the Americas and challenging the myth of Columbus, Alejo Carpentier—"the father of magical realism"—studies the first meetings of the Western and American cultures and the tragic consequences of tarnished and abandoned idealism.

Offered a commission to illegally trap a rare Russian butterfly, J. decides to use the opportunity to smuggle his Russian lover, who has no papers, back into her homeland, but after she mysteriously vanishes in the port of Odessa, he spends his time waiting for her return, reading her letters, and h