And it is that literature transports the reader to other realities, places, or moments in history. A book is a journey without movement. By reading The Lord of the Rings by J. R. R. Tolkien., you become Frodo Bolson’s traveling companion, and you witness how this hobbit does everything possible to fulfill his mission: destroy the One Ring. In The Principito by Antoine De Saint Exupéry, you are transported to the Sahara with the pilot who, at the hand of his prince, reflects on nature and human life. In The Anne Frank Diary, you are a silent witness to all the adventures that this little girl had to go through with her family during the Second World War.
Peruvian authors also have their magic. There are publications that not only talk about the history and customs of this South American country but also reflect daily life itself. Thus, the Nobel Prize winner Mario Vargas Llosa, who in La ciudad y Los Perros transports us to the interior of the Leoncio Prado military school to show the social prejudices and racism that lived in that institution. While Julio Ramón Ribeyro in Los gallinazos sin Plumas invites us to learn about the history of the brothers Enrique and Efraín, who are exploited by their grandfather. But there are also books about love and hope, one of those that make us believe in the goodness of the world. One of them is Algún día te mostraré el desierto of Renato Cisneros. Here the journalist tells us how his relationship with Valeria –his current wife- began and the entire process prior to the arrival of Julieta, his only daughter.
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Next, we quote some of the books by Peruvian authors that you have to read:
Tradiciones Peruanas by Ricardo Palma
It is one of the most important books in Peruvian culture. This series of short stories was published, in its first edition, in 1872. Using a typical language of the time with various doses of humor, romanticism, and mischief, Palma narrates the main historical events that developed in Peru. Get one here
El sexto by José María Arguedas
Published in 1961, it is the fourth novel by Arguedas and narrates the prison experience that the writer lived during his eleven-month confinement between 1937 and 1938 in one of the best-known prisons in Lima. In this book, the also author of Los ríos profundos, narrates the prison horror he witnessed, having pain, death, injustice, and anguish as its main nuances. Buy a copy here
Conversación en la catedral by Mario Vargas Llosa
“No other novel has given me so much work; therefore, if I had to save just one of the ones I have written from fire, I would save this one”, this is how Vargas Llosa defines this book published in 1969. This novel shows the corruption, political repression, and frustration of Peruvian society who lived during the government of Manuel A. Odría. Buy one here
La ciudad y los perros by Mario Vargas Llosa
Continuing with the writer from Arequipa, the first novel he published arrives (1963). This work – staged at the Leoncio Prado military school – narrates the experiences of a group of students from different races and social classes who configure through their actions a metaphor for the diversity and social conflicts that characterize Peru at the time. Do you want one? Click here
Los heraldos negros by César Vallejo
“Hay golpes en la vida, tan fuertes… ¡Yo no sé!” (“There are shocks in life, so strong … I don’t know!”) Is surely the best-known verse of this book of poems published in 1919. Here, Vallejo approaches modernist lyricism, topics such as death, disillusionment, uncertainty, and pain. Get this novel here
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Un mundo para Julius by Alfredo Bryce Echenique
Considered as one of the most valuable works in the contemporary Latin American narrative, it focuses on the Lima of the 50s in which Julius lives, a boy who comes from a wealthy family and who closely sees the world of his employees: full of customs and deficiencies. This novel is a critique of the Lima upper class of the time, characterized by hypocrisy, racism, and the division of social classes. Get a copy here
La palabra del mudo by Julio Ramón Ribeyro
First published in 1972, it is made up of almost a hundred stories based on characters who lead an existence full of pain and anguish. Ribeyro explained the title of his book indicating that “in most of my stories those [men and women] who in life are deprived of speech, the marginalized, the forgotten, those condemned to a life without harmony and without voice, express themselves. I have restored this denied breath and allowed them to modulate their yearnings, outbursts, and anguishes”. Buy one here
El mundo es ancho y ajeno by Ciro Alegría
Mario Vargas Llosa defined this novel as “the starting point of modern Peruvian narrative literature” and its author as “our first classic novelist.” Published in 1941, it delves into the problems of the Andean community Rumi, which is unfairly dispossessed of its lands and must move to another place. The community members manage to resurface, but once again, injustice shakes their tranquility and leads them to the fateful disappearance. Get yours here
Siete ensayos de interpretación de la realidad peruana by José Carlos Mariátegui
Published in 1928, it approaches the various issues that concern the evolution of Peruvian society, such as the process of the economy, indigenous problems, public education, religion, regionalism versus centralism, among others, interpreting aspects of the Peruvian reality. Buy the novel here
La distancia que nos separa by Renato Cisneros
Probably one of the most intimate books on the list. Cisneros, after an arduous investigation, narrates the life of his father, Federico ‘El Gaucho’ Cisneros, one of the most important militaries in recent Peruvian history. “It is the story of a son who seeks his place in the world through the memory of his father”, is how the writer defines his book published in 2015. Buy one here
Source: peru.travel / PromPerú