José María Arguedas
Encyclopedia
José María Arguedas Altamirano (18 January 1911 – 28 November 1969) was a Peru
vian novel
ist, poet
, and anthropologist who wrote mainly in Spanish
, although some of his poetry is in Quechua
. Arguedas was ethnically mestizo
, being of mixed Spanish and Quechua descent himself.
Generally considered one of the foremost figures of 20th century Peruvian arts, Arguedas was born in the province of Andahuaylas
in the southern Peruvian Andes
. He was brought up in poverty amongst Quechua Indians
, and learned Quechua
before Spanish
. He studied anthropology
at the National University of San Marcos
(Lima
, Peru
) and worked as an anthropologist for the rest of his life.
and vocabulary
. By the time of his first novel, Yawar Fiesta (1941; the name means "Blood Festival"), he had begun to explore the theme that would obsess him for the rest of his career: the clash between white "civilization" and the indigenous, "traditional" way of life. In this he was part of the Indigenista movement in South American literature. He continued to explore this theme in his next two books Los Ríos Profundos ("Deep Rivers") (1958) and Todas las Sangres (1964). His work showed the violence and exploitation of race relations in Peru's small rural towns and haciendas, while portraying Indian characters as gentle and childlike.
Arguedas was moderately optimistic about the possibility of a rapprochement between the forces of "tradition" and the forces of "modernity" until the 1960s, when he became more pessimistic. In his last (unfinished) work, El zorro de arriba y el zorro de abajo ("The Fox From Up Above and the Fox From Down Below") (1969), he abandoned the realism
of his earlier works for a more postmodern approach. This novel expressed his despair, caused by his fear that the 'primitive' ways of the Indians could not survive the onslaught of modern technology and capitalism. At the same time that Arguedas was becoming more pessimistic about race relations in his country, younger indigenist intellectuals became increasingly militant, often criticizing his work in harsh terms for his poetic, romanticized treatment of indigenous and rural life.
Peru
Peru , officially the Republic of Peru , is a country in western South America. It is bordered on the north by Ecuador and Colombia, on the east by Brazil, on the southeast by Bolivia, on the south by Chile, and on the west by the Pacific Ocean....
vian novel
Novel
A novel is a book of long narrative in literary prose. The genre has historical roots both in the fields of the medieval and early modern romance and in the tradition of the novella. The latter supplied the present generic term in the late 18th century....
ist, poet
Poet
A poet is a person who writes poetry. A poet's work can be literal, meaning that his work is derived from a specific event, or metaphorical, meaning that his work can take on many meanings and forms. Poets have existed since antiquity, in nearly all languages, and have produced works that vary...
, and anthropologist who wrote mainly in Spanish
Spanish language
Spanish , also known as Castilian , is a Romance language in the Ibero-Romance group that evolved from several languages and dialects in central-northern Iberia around the 9th century and gradually spread with the expansion of the Kingdom of Castile into central and southern Iberia during the...
, although some of his poetry is in Quechua
Quechua languages
Quechua is a Native South American language family and dialect cluster spoken primarily in the Andes of South America, derived from an original common ancestor language, Proto-Quechua. It is the most widely spoken language family of the indigenous peoples of the Americas, with a total of probably...
. Arguedas was ethnically mestizo
Mestizo
Mestizo is a term traditionally used in Latin America, Philippines and Spain for people of mixed European and Native American heritage or descent...
, being of mixed Spanish and Quechua descent himself.
Generally considered one of the foremost figures of 20th century Peruvian arts, Arguedas was born in the province of Andahuaylas
Andahuaylas
Andahuaylas is a Peruvian city, capital of the Andahuaylas Province. It is known as the pradera de los celajes, the prairie of colored clouds. It's approximate population of 34,000 inhabitants makes it the second largest city in the region after the region's capital Abancay.-Location:Andahuyalas is...
in the southern Peruvian Andes
Andes
The Andes is the world's longest continental mountain range. It is a continual range of highlands along the western coast of South America. This range is about long, about to wide , and of an average height of about .Along its length, the Andes is split into several ranges, which are separated...
. He was brought up in poverty amongst Quechua Indians
Indigenous peoples of the Americas
The indigenous peoples of the Americas are the pre-Columbian inhabitants of North and South America, their descendants and other ethnic groups who are identified with those peoples. Indigenous peoples are known in Canada as Aboriginal peoples, and in the United States as Native Americans...
, and learned Quechua
Quechua languages
Quechua is a Native South American language family and dialect cluster spoken primarily in the Andes of South America, derived from an original common ancestor language, Proto-Quechua. It is the most widely spoken language family of the indigenous peoples of the Americas, with a total of probably...
before Spanish
Spanish language
Spanish , also known as Castilian , is a Romance language in the Ibero-Romance group that evolved from several languages and dialects in central-northern Iberia around the 9th century and gradually spread with the expansion of the Kingdom of Castile into central and southern Iberia during the...
. He studied anthropology
Anthropology
Anthropology is the study of humanity. It has origins in the humanities, the natural sciences, and the social sciences. The term "anthropology" is from the Greek anthrōpos , "man", understood to mean mankind or humanity, and -logia , "discourse" or "study", and was first used in 1501 by German...
at 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...
(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...
, Peru
Peru
Peru , officially the Republic of Peru , is a country in western South America. It is bordered on the north by Ecuador and Colombia, on the east by Brazil, on the southeast by Bolivia, on the south by Chile, and on the west by the Pacific Ocean....
) and worked as an anthropologist for the rest of his life.
Career
Arguedas began by writing short stories about the indigenous environment in which he was brought up, in a Spanish highly influenced by Quechua syntaxSyntax
In linguistics, syntax is the study of the principles and rules for constructing phrases and sentences in natural languages....
and vocabulary
Vocabulary
A person's vocabulary is the set of words within a language that are familiar to that person. A vocabulary usually develops with age, and serves as a useful and fundamental tool for communication and acquiring knowledge...
. By the time of his first novel, Yawar Fiesta (1941; the name means "Blood Festival"), he had begun to explore the theme that would obsess him for the rest of his career: the clash between white "civilization" and the indigenous, "traditional" way of life. In this he was part of the Indigenista movement in South American literature. He continued to explore this theme in his next two books Los Ríos Profundos ("Deep Rivers") (1958) and Todas las Sangres (1964). His work showed the violence and exploitation of race relations in Peru's small rural towns and haciendas, while portraying Indian characters as gentle and childlike.
Arguedas was moderately optimistic about the possibility of a rapprochement between the forces of "tradition" and the forces of "modernity" until the 1960s, when he became more pessimistic. In his last (unfinished) work, El zorro de arriba y el zorro de abajo ("The Fox From Up Above and the Fox From Down Below") (1969), he abandoned the realism
Literary realism
Literary realism most often refers to the trend, beginning with certain works of nineteenth-century French literature and extending to late-nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century authors in various countries, towards depictions of contemporary life and society "as they were." In the spirit of...
of his earlier works for a more postmodern approach. This novel expressed his despair, caused by his fear that the 'primitive' ways of the Indians could not survive the onslaught of modern technology and capitalism. At the same time that Arguedas was becoming more pessimistic about race relations in his country, younger indigenist intellectuals became increasingly militant, often criticizing his work in harsh terms for his poetic, romanticized treatment of indigenous and rural life.
Fiction
- 1935 - Agua. Los escoleros. Warma kuyay. Collection of short stories.
- 1941 - Yawar fiesta ("Blood River"). Novel. Revised in 1958. English translation: Yawar Fiesta, translated by Frances Horning Barraclough (University of Texas Press, 1985).
- 1953 - "La muerte de los hermanos Arango." Short story.
- 1954 - Diamantes y pedernales. Novel.
- 1958 - Los ríos profundos. Novel. English translation: Deep Rivers, translated by Frances Horning Barraclough (University of Texas Press, 1978).
- 1961 - El Sexto. Novel, based on Arguedas's experiences in the federal prison El Sexto in 1938.
- 1962 - "La agonía de Rasu Ñiti." Short story.
- 1964 - Todas las sangres. Novel.
- 1965 - El sueño del pongo: Cuento quechua. Pongoq mosqoynin; qatqa runapa willakusqan. Bilingual (Quechua/Spanish) story, published as a pamphlet.
- 1967 - Amor mundo y todos los cuentos. Collection of short stories.
- 1971 - El zorro de arriba y el zorro de abajo. Unfinished novel, published posthumously. Describes the crises that would lead to his suicide. English translation: The Fox from Up Above and the Fox from Down Below, translated by Frances Horning Barraclough (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2000).
- 1973 - Cuentos olvidados. Posthumous collection of short stories.
Poetry
Arguedas wrote his poems in Quechua and later translated them into Spanish.- 1962 - Túpac Amaru Kamaq taytanchisman. Haylli-taki. A nuestro padre creador Túpac Amaru.
- 1966 - Oda al jet.
- 1969 - Qollana Vietnam Llaqtaman / Al pueblo excelso de Vietnam.
- 1972 - Katatay y otros poemas. Huc jayllikunapas. Published posthumously in a bilingual edition (Quechua and Spanish) by Sybila Arredondo de Arguedas.
Anthropology and Folkloric Studies
- 1938 - Canto kechwa. Includes an essay on the artistic and creative abilities of Indians and mestizos. Bilingua edition (Quechua and Spanish), compiled while Arguedas was imprisoned for participating in a student protest.
- 1947 - Mitos, leyendas y cuentos peruanos. Quechua myths, legends, and tales, collected by school teachers in the Andes, edited and translated into Spanish by Arguedas and Francisco Izquierdo Ríos.
- 1949 - Canciones y cuentos del pueblo quechua. Published in English translation as The Singing Mountaineers: Songs and Tales of the Quechua People, edited by Ruth Stephan (University of Texas Press, 1957).
- 1953 - Cuentos mágico-realistas y canciones de fiestas tradicionales - Folclor del valle del Mantaro.
- 1956 - Puquio, una cultura en proceso de cambio.
- 1957 - Estudio etnográfico de la feria de Huancayo.
- 1957 - Evolución de las comunidades indígenas.
- 1958 - El arte popular religioso y la cultura mestiza.
- 1961 - Cuentos mágico-religiosos quechuas de Lucanamarca.
- 1966 - Poesía quechua.
- 1968 - Las comunidades de España y del Perú.
- 1975 - Señores e indios: Acerca de la cultura quechua. Posthumous collection, edited by Ángel RamaÁngel RamaÁngel Rama was a Uruguayan writer, academic, and literary critic, known for his work on modernismo and for his theorization of the concept of "transculturation."-Biography:...
. - 1976 - Formación de una cultura nacional indoamericana. Posthumous collection, edited by Ángel RamaÁngel RamaÁngel Rama was a Uruguayan writer, academic, and literary critic, known for his work on modernismo and for his theorization of the concept of "transculturation."-Biography:...
.
Sources
- José Alberto Portugal, Las novelas de José María Arguedas: Una incursión en lo inarticulado. (2007) Editorial Fondo PUCP. ISBN 9972428012
- Elena Aibar Ray, Identidad y resistencia cultural en las obras de José María Arguedas. (1992) Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú.
- Antonio Cornejo PolarAntonio Cornejo PolarAntonio Cornejo-Polar was a Peruvian-born academic, teacher, literature and cultural critic, known particularly for his theorization of the concept of "heterogeneity."-Biography:Cornejo Polar was born December 23, 1936 in Arequipa, Peru...
, Los universos narrativos de José María Arguedas. (1997) Editorial Horizonte. - Ciro A. Sandoval and Sandra M. Boschetto-Sandoval (eds), Jose Maria Arguedas. (1998) Ohio University Press. ISBN 0-89680-200-0
- Sergio R. Franco, editor, José María Arguedas: hacia una poética migrante. (2006) Instituto Internacional de Literatura Iberoamericana. ISBN 1-930744-22-6
- Wilfredo Kapsoli (compliador), Zorros al fin del milenio: actas y ensayos del seminario sobre la última novela de José María Arguedas. (2004) Universidad Ricardo Palma/Centro de Investigación. ISBN 9972-885-75-5
- Misha Kokotovic, The colonial divide in Peruvian narrative: social conflict and transculturation. (2005) Sussex Academic Press. ISBN 1-84519-029-7
- Aymará de Llano, Pasión y agonía: la escritura de José María de Arguedas. (2004) Centro de Estudios Literarios 'Antonio Cornejo Polar'/Editorial Martin. ISBN 0-9747750-1-0
- Amy Nauss Millay, Voices from the fuente viva: the effect of orality in twentieth-century Spanish American narrative. (2005) Bucknell University Press. ISBN 0-8387-5594-1
- Melisa Moore, En las encruciadas: Las ciencias sociales y la novela en el Perú. (2003) Fondo Editorial Universiad Nacional Mayor de San Marcos. ISBN 9972-46-211-0
- Melisa Moore, “Between two worlds: the poetics of ethnographic representation in José Mara Arguedas' Las comunidades de España y del Perú,” Bulletin of Spanish Studies 81, no. 2 (2004): 175-185.
- Alberto MoreirasAlberto MoreirasAlberto Moreiras is a Spanish-born academic and cultural theorist who currently works at Texas A&M University. Previously he taught at Duke University and at the Centre for Modern Thought at the University of Aberdeen....
, The Exhaustion of Difference: the politics of Latin American cultural studies. (2001 ) Duke University Press. ISBN 0-8223-2726-0 (cloth) 0822327244 (pbk.) - Silverio Muñoz, José María Arguedas y el mito de la salvación por la cultura. (1987) Editorial Horizonte.
- Mario Vargas Llosa, La Utopia Arcaica: Jose Maria Arguedas y Las Ficciones del Indigenismo. (1997) Fonode Cultura Económica.
- Thomas Ward, "Arguedas: su alabanza del mestizo cultural", La resistencia cultural: la nación en el ensayo de las Américas. (2004) Universidad Ricardo Palma/Editorial Universitaria. ISBN 9972-885-78-X
- Sales Salvador, Dora (2004) Puentes sobre el mundo: Cultura, traducción y forma literaria en las narrativas de transculturación de José María Arguedas y Vikram Chandra. Nueva York/Bern/Frankfurt: Peter Lang. ISBN 3-03910-359-8
- Sales, Dora (ed.) (2009) José María Arguedas. Qepa wiñaq… Siempre. Literatura y antropología. Prólogo de Sybila de Arguedas. Edición crítica de Dora Sales. Madrid/Frankfurt: Iberoamericana/Vervuert. Colección “El Fuego Nuevo. Textos Recobrados”. ISBN: 978-84-8489-433-9 (Iberoamericana); 978-3-86527-490-8 (Vervuert)
External links
- Web site of Arguedas
- Ciberayllu, a Spanish-language webzine, has a section called Arguediana, dedicated exclusively to José María Arguedas. Includes critical essays, biographic data, and some audio excerpts with the writer's voice.
- The Pongo's Dream: a short story by Arguedas available online
- A description of the political scene in Peru in the late 1980s. Arguedas' poem 'A call to certain academics' is quoted in full at the end of the article.
- "Jose Maria Arguedas: Godfather of Liberationism", by Stephen B. Wall-Smith
- Arguedas, from Posthegemony
- gonzaloportocarrero.blogsome.com/2006/06/01/todas-las-sangres/, by Gonzalo Portocarrero
- Video of life and work