Alfredo Bryce
Encyclopedia
Alfredo Bryce Echenique (born February 19, 1939) is a Peruvian-Spanish writer born in Lima
Lima
Lima is the capital and the largest city of Peru. It is located in the valleys of the Chillón, Rímac and Lurín rivers, in the central part of the country, on a desert coast overlooking the Pacific Ocean. Together with the seaport of Callao, it forms a contiguous urban area known as the Lima...
. He has written several books and short stories.
Early days
Son of a well-off, English-Peruvian family. Upon the wish of his family Bryce Echenique studied lawLaw
Law is a system of rules and guidelines which are enforced through social institutions to govern behavior, wherever possible. It shapes politics, economics and society in numerous ways and serves as a social mediator of relations between people. Contract law regulates everything from buying a bus...
in the National University of San Marcos
National University of San Marcos
The National University of San Marcos is the most important and respected higher-education institution in Peru. Its main campus, the University City, is located in Lima...
until 1964. His literary interest nevertheless prevailed and so, shortly afterwards, he completed a parallel study course in literature with a thesis
Thesis
A dissertation or thesis is a document submitted in support of candidature for an academic degree or professional qualification presenting the author's research and findings...
on Ernest Hemingway. In 1988 he adopted Spanish nationality without losing Peruvian one .
Rise in literary career
A year later he received a grant from the French government which, like many other Latin American authors of the boomLatin American Boom
The Latin American Boom was a literary movement of the 1960s and 1970s when the work of a group of relatively young Latin American novelists became widely circulated in Europe and throughout the world...
period, led him to Paris. At the Sorbonne
University of Paris
The University of Paris was a university located in Paris, France and one of the earliest to be established in Europe. It was founded in the mid 12th century, and officially recognized as a university probably between 1160 and 1250...
he studied classic and modern French literature
French literature
French literature is, generally speaking, literature written in the French language, particularly by citizens of France; it may also refer to literature written by people living in France who speak traditional languages of France other than French. Literature written in French language, by citizens...
and then taught at various French schools and universities.
His first book Huerto Cerrado was published in 1968 and was a finalist for the Casa de las Américas literary prize awarded in Cuba. Huerto Cerrado is a collection of short stories written in different styles and points of view about a young protagonist, Manolo, a member of Lima's upper class, as he comes of age in 1950s Lima. This was followed by his first novel, Un Mundo para Julius, published in 1970 that became a big success and counts today as one of the classics of Latin American literature
Latin American literature
Latin American literature consists of the oral and written literature of Latin America in several languages, particularly in Spanish, Portuguese, and indigenous languages of the Americas. It rose to particular prominence globally during the second half of the 20th century, largely due to the...
. The novel, which has since been translated into ten languages, tells the story of a young boy who grows up as the youngest of four children of a rich, Peruvian upper class family. Although Julius actually belongs to the ruling classes he feels a stronger bond with the servants which surround him and this brings him into conflict with his family. With biting irony the author exposes, through the eyes of a child, the great social differences in Peruvian society.
Recent successes
Un mundo para Julius marks for Bryce Echenique the start of an extremely productive literary career, in which he has until today written nearly twenty novels and story volumes.I am an author of the second half of the 20th century. Despite this declaration and his spatial and temporal closeness to other Latin American authors of the boom generation, Bryce Echenique keeps a conscious distance to his colleagues who he sometimes refers to as nouveau riche. That his style, as one critic once said, corresponds more to an ironic than a magic realism, is shown by the author also in one his latest novels: La amigdalitis de Tarzán from 1999. Largely in the form of letters, the novel relates the story of the hindered romantic relationship between a poor Peruvian troubadour and the daughter of an influential Salvadoran
El Salvador
El Salvador or simply Salvador is the smallest and the most densely populated country in Central America. The country's capital city and largest city is San Salvador; Santa Ana and San Miguel are also important cultural and commercial centers in the country and in all of Central America...
family.
Similar to his heroes, Alfredo Bryce Echenique also lived for decades far from his home city of Lima to which he only returned in 1999. Also that year he was granted an honorary degree
Honorary degree
An honorary degree or a degree honoris causa is an academic degree for which a university has waived the usual requirements, such as matriculation, residence, study, and the passing of examinations...
by the Universidad Nacional Mayor de San Marcos.
Claims of plagiarism
In March, 2007, Peruvian Diplomat Oswaldo de RiveroOswaldo de Rivero
Ambassador Oswaldo de Rivero is a Peruvian career diplomat, serving as permanent representative to the United Nations in New York City....
wrote an article for the newspaper El Comercio
El Comercio
El Comercio is a Peruvian newspaper based in Lima. It has a circulation of more than 120,000 copies. It was founded in 1839, making it the oldest newspaper of Peru and one of the oldest in the Spanish language....
of Lima, Peru accusing Bryce of writing an article "Potencias sin poder" that was an almost exact copy of one written by de Rivero in the magazine "Quehacer" in March, 2005. Bryce responded saying the article had been submitted in error by his secretary.
Juan Carlos Bondy subsequently found evidence that Bryce had earlier plagiarized the article "Amistad, bendito tesoro" by Ángel Esteban that had appeared in La Nación
La Nación
La Nación is an Argentine daily newspaper. The country's leading conservative paper, the centrist Clarín is its main competitor. It is the only newspaper in Argentina still published in broadsheet format.-Overview:...
of Argentina in December, 1996 Bondy's blog. Bryce has also been accused of plagiarizing articles by Graham E. Fuller and Herbert Morote Perú21.
Journalism professor María Soledad de la Cerda found sixteen other instances of plagiarism which were found as a result of research for her course in investigative journalism El Mercurio.
Novels
- Un mundo para Julius (English version: A world for Julius), 1970
- Tantas veces Pedro, 1977
- La vida exagerada de Martín Romaña, 1981
- El hombre que hablaba de Octavia Cádiz, 1985 (Along with the last forms a diptychDiptychA diptych di "two" + ptychē "fold") is any object with two flat plates attached at a hinge. Devices of this form were quite popular in the ancient world, wax tablets being coated with wax on inner faces, for recording notes and for measuring time and direction.In Late Antiquity, ivory diptychs with...
called: Cuaderno de navegación en un sillón voltaire) - La última mudanza de Felipe Carrillo, 1988
- Dos señoras conversan (thee noveletteNoveletteA novelette is a piece of short prose fiction. The distinction between a novelette and other literary forms is usually based upon word count, with a novelette being longer than a short story, but shorter than a novella...
s), 1990 - No me esperen en Abril, 1995
- Reo de Nocturnidad, 1997
- La Amigdalitis de Tarzán (English version: Tarzan's Tonsillitis, a epistolary novelEpistolary novelAn epistolary novel is a novel written as a series of documents. The usual form is letters, although diary entries, newspaper clippings and other documents are sometimes used. Recently, electronic "documents" such as recordings and radio, blogs, and e-mails have also come into use...
), 1998 - El huerto de mi amada, 2002 (Winner in 2002 of the Planet AwardPremio PlanetaThe Premio Planeta de Novela is a Spanish literary prize, awarded since 1952 by the Spanish publisher Grupo Planeta to an original novel written in Spanish . It is one of about 16 literary prizes given by Planeta....
)
Story books
- Huerto CerradoHuerto CerradoHuerto Cerrado is a collection of short stories written by Peruvian author Alfredo Bryce Echenique. Published in 1968, it was Bryce's debut in the literary world....
, 1968 - La felicidad, ja ja, 1974
- Magdalena peruana y otros cuentos, 1988
- Guía triste de París (English version: A sad tour of Paris), 1999
Chronicles
- A vuelo de buen cubero, 1977
- Crónicas personales, 1998
- A trancas y barrancas, 1996
- Crónicas perdidas, 2001
- Doce cartas a dos amigos, 2003
Memoirs
- Permiso para vivir - Antimemorias I, 1993
- Permiso para Sentir - Antimemorias II, 2005