Julio Ramón Ribeyro (1929–1994)

I am not a fan of Mario Vargas Llosa, so I haven’t read a lot of Peruvian writers. I did read a collection of Ribeyro’s short stories (entitled Marginal Voices) a few years ago because I was intrigued by the country and wanted to learn more. (Surprisingly, I can find no review or other indication of my thoughts on that collection.) Ribeyro was best known for his short stories and he received the Premio Juan Rulfo de literatura latinoamericana y del Caribe (now known as the FIL Literary Award in Romance Languages) the year he died, 1994. Most of what he wrote focused on urban stories, urban contexts. This novel is an exception: it tells of a boy from Lima who is sent to live on a remote hacienda in the mountains. It is simultaneously a coming of age story and a story about life in a rural farming community. As with my comments about Kocharethi, above, it is perhaps of more interest for its depiction of life and customs in rural Peru than for its plot, though the story is worth reading.… (meer)

San Gabriel es una hacienda en el interior del Perú. A ella acude, por razones familiares, un adolescente criado en la capital. "Pero San Gabriel no es una casa, como tu crees", le advierte Jacinto, "el loco" de la familia, "ni un pueblo. Es una selva". Y, de hecho, en contra de toda expectativa, lo que encuentra Lucho en ese mundo rural, de muchas generaciones de terratenientes, es una comunidad que, como toda comunidad cerrada y aislada por mucho tiempo, "con sólo respirar el arie, se envenena" y en la que "el pez mas grande se come al chico" y "los débiles no tienen derecho a vivir".… (meer)