Paradiso
José Lezama Lima · 1910–1976 · Cuba
Originally Paradiso (Spanish) · translated by Gregory Rabassa
Why it matters
A sickly boy's sensory and intellectual awakening unfolds in prose so densely metaphorical that Cuban censors nearly suppressed it for its homoeroticism. Cuban letters' most extravagantly baroque novel.
At a glance
bildungsromanmodernist
Difficulty 10/10slow pace573 pagesExtravagantly baroque, digression-heavy prose is considered among the hardest in Spanish letters.
Deep dive
Cuba's most extravagantly ornate novel follows one boy's illness, awakening, and friendships toward an ending that reframes everything difficult about the prose as the fulfillment of a promise made to a dead father.
Where to go next
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