Alejo Carpentier Valmont (Dec 26, 1904 – April 24, 1980) was a Cuban novelist, essayist, and musicologist who greatly influenced Latin American literature during its famous "boom" period. His writing style integrated the resurgent Baroque style that Latin American artists adopted from the European model and assimilated to the Latin American artistic vision. Carpentier wove elements of Latin American political history, music, social injustice and art into the tapestries of his writings, all of which exerted a decisive influence on the works of younger Latin American and Cuban writers’ .He was jailed and exiled for his leftist political philosophies. Carpentier died in Paris in 1980 and was buried in Havana's Colon Cemetery with other Cuban political and artistic luminaries. Less