Peru fascinates you? You want to discover this magnificent country with a thousand facets? Here is a our selection of Peruvian litterature that should allow you to approach the country by its legends and myths in view of your future journey to the Inca country. We have divided the Peruvian litterature in different sections, according to the region (north or south), general Peruvian litterature and books for children.
Peruvian Litterature taking place in the North, Andes and Amazonia
Pantaleon and the Visitors (1990)
By Mario Vargas Llosa
Captain Pantaleón Pantoja has a genius for organization, a love of obedience, and the efficiency of the military institution. His hard work and talents allow him to quickly set up the S.V.G.P.F.A. (Visitor Service for Garrisons, Border Posts and Related), which has its own anthem, its own colors, and becomes a thriving business. As for Pantaleón, who has never looked at any woman other than his mother, Mrs. Leonor, and his wife, Pochita, he is promoted to the rank of the most powerful pimp in Peru.
Alongside his drama, in the same dual tone of burlesque and gravity, Vargas Llosa weaves the tragic fate of Brother Francisco, another fanatic, who urges his followers to crucify animals, then men, to ward off “Evil.”
The Green House (1981) to discover the North Coast and the Amazon
By Mario Vargas Llosa
This novel takes place in Piura, a Peruvian town situated between desert and jungle. It is torn by boredom and lust. Don Anselmo, a stranger in a black coat, builds a brothel on the outskirts of the town while he charms its innocent people, setting in motion a chain reaction with extraordinary consequences.
This brothel, called the Green House, brings together the innocent and the corrupt: Bonificia, a young Indian girl saved by the nuns only to become a prostitute ; Father Garcia, struggling for the church ; and four best friends drawn to both excitement and escape.
The conflicting forces that haunt the Green House evoke a world balanced between savagery and civilization – and one that is cursed by not being able to discern between the two.
The Discreet Hero (2015): A Critical view on actual Peru
By Mario Vargas Llosa
A tale of two cities – Piura and Lima – rocked by scandal and the disintegrating bonds of loyalty between the generations.
Nobel laureate Mario Vargas Llosa’s newest novel follows two fascinating characters whose lives are destined to intersect. Neat, endearing Felícito Yanaqué, a small businessman in Piura, Peru, who finds himself the victim of blackmail. And on the other side Ismael Carrera, a successful owner of an insurance company in Lima, who cooks up a plan to avenge himself against his two lazy sons who want him dead.
Felícito and Ismael are, each in his own way, quiet, discreet rebels: honourable men trying to seize control of their destinies in a social and political climate where all can seem set in stone, predetermined. They are hardly vigilantes. But each is determined to live according to his own personal ideals and desires. This means forcibly rising above the pettiness of their surroundings.
Drums for Rancas (1972)
By Manuel Scorza
Manuel Scorza did not invent anything. “This book,” he states in the introduction, “is the desperately true chronicle of a solitary struggle: the one fought in the central Andes, between 1950 and 1962, by the inhabitants of a few villages visible only on the military maps of the troops who razed them.
The protagonists, the crimes, the betrayal, and the grandeur almost always bear their real names.
The Shining Path (2015)
By Alfredo Villar, Luis Rossell, and Jesus Cossio
This powerful graphic novel, somewhere between reportage and documentary, offers an essential and moving testimony about this period of violence that marked the country.
Who Killed Palomino Molero? (1989)
By Mario Vargas Llosa
The horribly mutilated body of a young man, hanging from a tree, has been discovered by a young goatherd. The investigation leads Lieutenant Silva and Sergeant Lituma into the closed world of a military base run by Colonel Mindreau, and into the labyrinth of the small town of Talara, organized around the tavern of Doña Adriana. On one side, the secret world of the army; on the other, a colorful, pitiful, petty, and boisterous population. Who, among them all, killed Palomino Molero?
To the flawless suspense of a true detective novel, Mario Vargas Llosa, a great Peruvian litterature writer, adds a rigorous analysis of Peru’s social problems and an ironic, implicit denunciation of the mechanisms of power.
A Place Called Dog Ear (2011)
By Iván Thays
Dog Ear is an isolated region of Peru where Indigenous peasants were killed by both guerrillas and the army. The narrator, a young journalist, is sent to this area to cover the visit of President Alejandro Toledo, who wishes to open a new chapter in the history of relations between the Andean peasants and the government in Lima.
Diary of an Apprentice Shaman (2004)
By Corine Sombrun
This travel journal by a young woman, a musician living in London who, shaken by an inconsolable loss, decides to travel to the Peruvian Amazon to study under a shaman, is also an initiatory tale mixing humor, self-mockery, spiritual quest, and the discovery of the Other.
Peruvian Litterature taking place in Lima and Southern Peru
El Sexto (2011)
By José María Arguedas
The young Gabriel is imprisoned in the El Sexto penitentiary in Lima, as part of the repression of student movements. There, he discovers the prison’s hierarchies, the various political organizations, violence, drug trafficking, and prostitution.
The author, imprisoned in 1938 for his political activism, draws on his own experience in this classic of Latin American literature.
Aunt Julia and the scriptwriter (1985)
By Mario Vargas Llosa
A fictionalized biography of the youth of Vargas Llosa, the story presents itself as a sentimental and artistic education of a budding young writer in Lima in the 1950s, where the radio drama series of the genial Pedro Camacho holds the nation in suspense.
Our comment : A very good book to know Mario Vargas Llosa. Easy to read and a good introduction to Lima of the time.
White rock (2006)
By Hugh Thomson
The lost cities of South America have always exercised a powerful hold on the popular imagination. The ruins of the Incas and other pre-Colombian civilisations are scattered over thousands of miles of still largely uncharted territory. They are particularly in the Eastern Andes, where the mountains fall away towards the Amazon.
Twenty-five years ago, Hugh Thomson set off into the cloud-forest on foot to find a ruin. That had been carelessly lost again after its initial discovery. Into his history of the Inca Empire he weaves the story of his adventures as he travelled to the most remote Inca cities. It is also the story of the great explorers in whose footsteps he followed, such as Hiram Bingham and Gene Savoy.
Every day, Jeremías crosses the Peruvian capital by bus or combi to get to university. Through his sensitive and lucid gaze passes today’s Lima, where poor neighborhoods and extremely wealthy areas coexist. Disenchanted, Jeremías is the perfect representative of a generation that was never able to integrate into the so-called “perfect society” of the 1990s in South America. Poetic narrative, urban portrait, social novel — Your Eyes in a Grey City is carried by a precise and fragmented writing style. In the valleys of southern Peru, nourished by the Apurímac and the Pachachaca rivers, a poor lawyer and his son Ernesto wander from town to town in search of an ideal place to settle. When his father leaves him in a religious boarding school in the provinces, the young boy experiences dismay among classmates who are either brutal or vulnerable. He discovers the miserable fate of the peons, follows the mestizos in their noisy uprising, and comes to understand suffering and solitude… A serious and poetic coming-of-age novel. It denounces the prejudice that associates Indigenous culture with something from a bygone era.Your Eyes in a Grey City (2013)
By Martín Mucha, Antonia García Castro
Deep Rivers (2002)
By José María Arguedas
Litterature about Inca culture
Incas Myths (2004)
By Gary Urton
Urton reviews the sources of our current knowledge of Inca mythology. He recounts various creation myths, including a selection from various ethnic groups and regions around the Inca empire. He also looks at the history and ethnography of the Incas to illuminate the nature and relationships of myth and history.</span&gt;
Journey to Peru and Bolivia (1875–1877)
By Charles Wiener
>-start=”65″ data-end=””>=”456″>A detailed and precise travel journal, offering fascinating information and descriptions of the spectacular regions crossed and the peoples encountered, both mestizo and Indigenous. Written with a highly skilled pen, it uniquely combines scholarly description and adventure. It also reveals that Wiener learned about a mysterious city, which he located and planned to discover: Machu Picchu.
>ta-start=”458″>data-end=”763″ data-is-last-node=”” data-is-only-n=””>ode=””>Today reissued with most of the beautiful original illustrations, Journey to Peru and Bolivia is accompanied by an introduction and commentary written by Pascal Riviale. He is a researcher at the National Archives of Paris, specialist in the history of Americanism, and author of several works on the subject.
Lost city of the Incas (2003)
By Hiram Bingham
Early in the 20th century, Bingham ventured into the wild and then unknown country of the Eastern Peruvian Andes. In 1911 he came upon the fabulous Inca city that made him famous: Machu Picchu. In the space of one short season he went on to discover two more lost cities. Including Vitcos, where the last Incan Emperor was assassinated.
The Great Inca (2008)
By María Rostworowski
>-st=””>art=”51″ data-end=”Pachacutec was, in the 15th century, the greatest conqueror in the history of his people and above all the true builder of the Inca Empire. To impose his power over a mosaic of more than 500 tribes, with very different customs, languages, and religions, he did not hesitate to harshly repress any attempt at rebellion. But he was not just a bloodthirsty conqueror; he was also a remarkable administrator, providing his vast empire with a solid and efficient administrative structure. He reorganized the conquered cities on the Inca model and gave power to a caste of officials who answered only to the empire’s capital.
=”672″ data-end=”891″>The author succeeds in bringing to life this great monarch. He also introduces us to the history of a civilization still very poorly known in France, from its origins to the eve of the Spanish conquest.
<h3 style=”text-align: left;”>The Incas (2008)
By Daniel J Peters
Cusi Huaman, a young Inca warrior once scorned as a weakling by his father. In love with Micay, a healer and daughter of a Chachapoya rebel chief. Around them swirl dozens of historical and fictional characters, including three war chiefs who become the last Inca emperors.
>ign=””>=”JUSTIFY”><span class=”yoast-text-mark” style=”font-size: medium;”>>Writing with details, Peters recreates ritual initiations, internecine feuds, the crushing of rebellions and the e=”font-size: medium;”>active presence of the gods in daily life. He also plunges the reader into a maelstrom climaxed by the arrival of Francisco Pizarro and the “Bearded Ones” in 1532.</span>&lt;/span></span&gt;
The Bastards of the Sun (1987)
By Roberte Manceau
There are civilizations that seem impenetrable to us—until the day an inspired novelist opens the door. Here, R. Manceau opens the door to the Inca Empire…
Turn Right at Machu Picchu: Rediscovering the Lost City one Step at a Time (2012)
By Mark Adams
In 1911, Hiram Bingham III climbed into the Andes Mountains of Peru and “discovered” Machu Picchu. History has recast Bingham as a villain who stole both priceless artifacts and credit for finding the great archeological site. Mark Adams set out to retrace the explorer’s perilous path in search of the truth—except he’d written about adventure far more than he’d actually lived it. In fact, he’d never even slept in a tent.
Peruvian litterature for Children
The Mist of Lima (2011)
By Cherisey
The story of Josefina Condori in Peru, who reunites the parents of abandoned children who have become invisible. The author met her during a world tour with her five children and tells her story. A portrait of a person who, in her own way, changes the world. A powerful text that will raise awareness among today’s children about the problems in the world around them.
Our comment: For children aged 10 and up, this book speaks about the despair of families in the Andes. They have to send their children to Lima, perhaps even to relatives, so they can attend school. Unfortunately, these children are often treated only as servants without rights or education.
The Last Song of the Inca (1999)
By Gerard Herzhaft
Peru, 1561. Thirty years after their arrival, the Spaniards have almost entirely taken control of the Inca Empire. But the true conquistadors did not benefit from their exploits. Full of bitterness, they dream of revenge, glory, and gold. Don Fernando, one of Pizarro’s companions, is ready to set off on another adventure… The young Inca Titu Cusi, meanwhile, is taking refuge in his new capital in the heart of the Amazonian forest. He hopes for a rebirth of the empire. How far will Huarachi, the old troubadour-warrior who has fought and sung of the Inca’s exploits, lead young Yawana, his disciple, and Don Fernando, the enemy who has placed himself back in his hands?&amp;lt;/p></p> <p data-start=”1485″ data-end=”1665″ data-is-last-node=”” data-is-only-node=””>Our comment: The story of the disappearance of the Incas after the arrival of the Spaniards and their traditions. An excellent children’s book to prepare for a family trip to Peru.
