Haiti was a remarkably constant presence in Carpentier’s life and its imprint on his narrative fiction and essays has been profound, far-reaching, and indelible. Carpentier’s fascination with Haiti begins with his first novel, ¡Écue-Yamba-Ó! (1933), culminates in The Kingdom of This World (1949) and resurfaces within the transatlantic context of the French Revolution in yet another major work, Explosion in the Cathedral (1962). While traces of Haiti appear in myriad formal and conceptual manifestations throughout Carpentier’s oeuvre, in this essay I suggest that the notion of the Plantationocene, forged by Donna Haraway and Donna Tsing, carries significant critical potential for refocusing Carpentier’s links with Haiti in a manner that is both transdisciplinary and cross-historical.

This chapter takes a close look at Blake’s 7 (1978–81), appearing right at the beginning of the Thatcher era. The chapter situates the series alongside the beginnings of Thatcher’s time in office and showing, as the ensuing two series do, a wavering engagement with the themes that would begin to constitute Thatcherism, presenting an uneasy and ambiguous connection with the tropes of the era, and a detectable shift in the style of television compared to the examples from the previous chapter (even if their roots can be discerned in these antecedents). Blake’s 7 is a BBC dystopian series about a group of outlaws in the future who steal a space ship and use it to try to bring down the Federation – the corrupt ruling power of the galaxy. It presents a group of increasingly individualistic crew members with little affection or respect for each other, whose motives are very often selfish. It also presents a world where there is little reward for altruism, and futility is the dominant theme. In the end all the crew members are murdered by the Federation, their efforts apparently amounting to nothing. This chapter will discuss the ways in which Blake’s 7 departs from traditional consensus-era science fiction television, including the Machiavellian motives of most of the central characters (on both sides of the political spectrum), the elevation of the individual above the collective, and its portrayal of the apparent futility of political struggle.

In 1920, the Italian tenor Enrico Caruso accepted a lucrative contract to sing at ten opera performances in Cuba, most of them in Havana’s recently built theater across from the Parque Central. When Caruso arrived in the island, he found a tense political climate: sugar prices had plummeted in the international market, and unemployment and economic crises had led protesting workers to the streets. During his final performance of Verdi’s Aida, a bomb exploded in the theater, sending the audience and musicians into a panic. After the explosion, Caruso’s reaction became the subject of much literary speculation. This chapter explores the accounts of Caruso and the bomb given by Carpentier, Guillermo Cabrera Infante, and Mayra Montero, and contrasts them to Caruso’s own version of the events.

Ann Walker had now moved in to live at Shibden with Anne, her elderly father, irritating sister and much loved aunt. However, Ann Walker had an inconvenient number of relatives living locally – notably the Priestleys in Lightcliffe and the Rawsons down in Halifax. They were suspicious as to why this shy wealthy heiress should leave her own home for Shibden. The Rawsons’ suspicions about Anne Lister further sharpened, as she began to develop her own coalmines – in competition with theirs.