Alejo Carpentier points to his novel "El arpa y la sombra"

Abstract

Among the genealogies constructed in Latin American countries to think about their identities, the "marvelous" has been, perhaps, the most widespread and influential concept. Consequently, all sorts of academic approaches have been developed on the marvelous, and literary theories, theories of culture, anthropologies and even conceptions of ethics have been based on it. In short, the longevity and official nature of the marvelous as a conceptual referent of Latin America is a fact. In other words, the marvelous is to the Latin American as the baroque is to the Hispanic: part of its identity.