Alejo Carpentier
Alejo Carpentier was born in Havana in 1904. He briefly studied architecture at the University of Havana, then left to become a journalist, a radio-station director, and a teacher of music and cultural history. He has written a history of Afro-Cuban music and several novels, including The Kingdom of This World, Explosion in a Cathedral, Concierto Barroco, and The Lost Steps, for which he received the Prix du Meilleur Livre Étranger in 1956. Carpentier was the cultural Attaché at the Cuban Embassy in Paris until his death in 1980.