An edition of Paradiso (1966)

Paradiso

  • 4.0 (1 rating) ·
  • 19 Want to read
  • 2 Currently reading
  • 1 Have read
Not in Library

My Reading Lists:

Create a new list

Check-In

×Close
Add an optional check-in date. Check-in dates are used to track yearly reading goals.
Today

  • 4.0 (1 rating) ·
  • 19 Want to read
  • 2 Currently reading
  • 1 Have read

Buy this book

Last edited by MARC Bot
December 10, 2023 | History
An edition of Paradiso (1966)

Paradiso

  • 4.0 (1 rating) ·
  • 19 Want to read
  • 2 Currently reading
  • 1 Have read

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.

Publish Date
Publisher
Cátedra
Language
Spanish
Pages
653

Buy this book

Previews available in: English

Edition Availability
Cover of: Paradiso
Paradiso
2000, Dalkey Archive Press
in English - 1st Dalkey Archive ed.
Cover of: Paradiso
Paradiso
1980, Cátedra
in Spanish
Cover of: Paradiso.
Paradiso.
1974, Farrar, Straus and Giroux
in English
Cover of: Paradiso
Paradiso
1974, Farrar, Straus and Giroux
in English

Add another edition?

Book Details


Edition Notes

Published in
Madrid : Cátedra, 1980
Series
Letras hispánicas ;, 112

Classifications

Library of Congress
MLCS 80/3315, PQ, PQ7389.L49 P3 1980

The Physical Object

Pagination
653 p. ; 18 cm.
Number of pages
653

ID Numbers

Open Library
OL4139744M
ISBN 10
8437602203
LCCN
80118059
OCLC/WorldCat
17037130
Library Thing
478840
Goodreads
264640

Community Reviews (0)

Feedback?
No community reviews have been submitted for this work.

History

Download catalog record: RDF / JSON / OPDS | Wikipedia citation
December 10, 2023 Edited by MARC Bot import existing book
February 25, 2022 Edited by ImportBot import existing book
October 19, 2020 Edited by MARC Bot import existing book
August 3, 2010 Edited by IdentifierBot added LibraryThing ID
April 1, 2008 Created by an anonymous user Imported from Scriblio MARC record