José María Arguedas – författare

The Quechua people, the "singing mountaineers" of Peru, still sing the songs that their Inca ancestors knew before the Spaniards invaded the Andes. Some of these songs, collected and translated into Spanish by JosÉ MarÍa Arguedas and MarÍa Lourdes Valladares from the Quechua language and the Huanca dialect, are now presented for the first time in English in the beautiful translations of Ruth Stephan, author of the recent prize-winning novel, The Flight. Also included in this rich collection are nine folk tales collected by Father Jorge A. Lira, translated into Spanish by Sr. Arguedas, and into English by Kate and Angel Flores.

This Spanish text is useful for teaching Peruvian, Latin American literature and cultural history at university level. It could also be read at upper sixth-form level as the plot is uncomplicated and the emotional atmosphere is immediately graspable. It tells the story of a young man's experience of growing up in highland Peru in a deeply divided society and of his struggle to overcome conflicts of language and culture. He manages to elaborate an alternative vision of Peru, drawing above all on native Indian sensibility and traditions. In the process, the novel draws on key elements of Peruvian history and culture and above all on popular memory. The introduction outlines the main features of the plot and offers a clear interpretation of the major episodes, relating them to key features of modern Peru and explains the chief elements of native culture that figure in the text, such as the use of myth.