“Coabana” is the first in a series of novels dedicated to Alejo Carpentier, an extraordinary character who was, at various times, a journalist, writer and musicologist, also working in radio and film.

After the uncertainty of his Cuban birth, a rebellious youth, a stay in prison and his flight from Cuba organized by Robert Desnos, come his chance meetings, loves and, above all, true friendships: André Malraux, Ernest Hemingway, Raymond Queneau, Diego Rivera, Pablo Picasso, Federico Garcia Lorca… They are all here and with them, the world.

There is also his father’s abandonment, the misery, the exile, the literary commentaries, the recklessness of the times punctuated by rumbas in Paris between the wars, the rise of fascism and anti-Semitism, the political commitment and, at last, the return to the country.