This essay reassesses Alejo Carpentier’s concept of lo real maravilloso americano [the American marvelous real] by comparing it to analogous notions developed earlier in the works of his Cuban fellow José Lezama Lima, showing how both authors respond to the widespread circulation of French surrealism in the Caribbean between the 1930s and 1940s. In doing so, I deconstruct Carpentier’s claims that his concept of the marvelous real was developed in response to the sense of awe he experienced during his visit to Haiti in 1943, instead viewing it as part of a broader endeavor simultaneously undertaken by several Caribbean writers and intellectuals, particularly in the Francophone islands, who reappropriated surrealist ideas in the context of their own critique of Western thought and an effort to reclaim the islands’ African heritage as part of their struggle for political and cultural autonomy.