Balance of Peruvian literature 2023: an optimal year for our letters

Novel

Three books clearly stood out in this area. “Comrade Jorge and the Dragon” by Rafael Dumett, the first part of a trilogy about Eudocio Ravines that reveals a writer capable of narrative feats supported by his investigative passion and an enviable knowledge of the psychology of his characters. The polished “Pages of the End of the World” by Johan Page is an ambitious fictional mechanism made up of a labyrinth of private and collective tragedies that briskly review the wounds of a country mired in its past. At the same level I must place “I killed a dog in Romania” by Claudia Ulloa Donoso, a lucid fable about human and geographical estrangement in a borderline confrontation.

Controversial, imperfect and funny, “The Geniuses” by Jaime Bayly was the most discussed and commented novel of this dying year and his best delivery since the distant “The Last Days of La Prensa.” Mario Vargas Llosa put an end to his exceptional novel career with “I Dedicate My Silence to Him,” a minor work but built with the craft, instinct and rhythm that our Nobel Prize winner never lost. For his part, Diego Otero has confirmed with his daring “The Skin of the Bat” that there is a different path to the usual self-referential conventions: a breath of fresh air while I’m suffocating.

Other valuable titles were “The North No Longer Exists” by Alina Gadea, a step forward for a work of undeniable interest; “The World We Saw Burning” by Renato Cisneros, which, despite some irregularities, is his best novel since “The Distance That Separates Us”; “You will not judge” by Rodrigo Murillo; “Almost everything disappears” by Verónica Ramírez; “Francisca” by Alonso Cueto, “Murders in verse” by Lorenzo Helguero, “Agua” by Lucero de Vicanco and “Expedition to Inca asleep” by Luis Hernán Castañeda. Special mention to Mario Ghibellini’s debut, “The Song of Captain Hook”, a moving story about the evils that plague the arcadia of childhood. It deserved more attention than it got.

Tale

The storybook of the year was “The inevitable weight of pigeons” by Carlos Yushimito, our best short distance prose writer along with Alexis Iparraguirre. A truly modern writer who erects narrative universes as compact as they are vibrant and offers the reader texts whose levels of meaning make them highly unique within the national imagination. “That which agonizes between our fingers” by Stuart Flores turned out to be another substantive volume with several detailed pieces, evidence of a young author who walks a long and personal path parallel to that of the tradition in which he moves. The hybridization of “11 words”, the latest by Julia Wong, brought freshness to a 2023 that was not exactly abundant in this area. Other groups of interest: “Childhoods” by Bryan Paredes; the reissue of “Rooms” by Ricardo Sumalavia; “Púñetazos”, a forceful attack by Magnolia Pinedo; Sophia Gómez Cardeña gave us “A discreet madness”; “Rainbow Love” by Sofía Tudela Gastañeta proposed a different look at the local queer literary vein. The Economic Culture Fund was successful with a beautiful edition of Cronwell Jara’s classic “Montacerdos,” while Rocío Silva Santisteban compiled her short story work in “El quemadero.” The rescue of the year has been “Stories for arrested brains” by the charming and unpredictable Raquel Jodorowsky; The mention of the most important anthology goes to “El tiempo es Nuestro” edited by Víctor Ruiz Velazco.

Regarding children’s and youth literature, it is worth highlighting “The Little Inca and the Conquest of the Garden of the South” by Eduardo Recoba; “Rag Hands” by Nishme Súmar and Michelle Magot; “Tree and Child” by Helmut Jerí Pabón; “Kumy to the rescue of planet Earth” by Juan Tuesta Gogny; “Noa’s closet” by Maricarmen González; “Courage” by Katherine Medina Rondón and “Tunki and the Ranger Children” by Janice Ferrand. The best of this section: “Kintsugi”, the silent and sublime notebook by Issa Watanabe.

Poetry

The storybook of the year was “The inevitable weight of pigeons” by Carlos Yushimito, our best short distance prose writer along with Alexis Iparraguirre. A truly modern writer who erects narrative universes as compact as they are vibrant and offers the reader texts whose levels of meaning make them highly unique within the national imagination. “That which agonizes between our fingers” by Stuart Flores turned out to be another substantive volume with several detailed pieces, evidence of a young author who walks a long and personal path parallel to that of the tradition in which he moves. The hybridization of “11 words”, the latest by Julia Wong, brought freshness to a 2023 that was not exactly abundant in this area. Other groups of interest: “Childhoods” by Bryan Paredes; the reissue of “Rooms” by Ricardo Sumalavia; “Púñetazos”, a forceful attack by Magnolia Pinedo; Sophia Gómez Cardeña gave us “A discreet madness”; “Rainbow Love” by Sofía Tudela Gastañeta proposed a different look at the local queer literary vein. The Economic Culture Fund was successful with a beautiful edition of Cronwell Jara’s classic “Montacerdos,” while Rocío Silva Santisteban compiled her short story work in “El quemadero.” The rescue of the year has been “Stories for arrested brains” by the charming and unpredictable Raquel Jodorowsky; The mention of the most important anthology goes to “El tiempo es Nuestro” edited by Víctor Ruiz Velazco.

Regarding children’s and youth literature, it is worth highlighting “The Little Inca and the Conquest of the Garden of the South” by Eduardo Recoba; “Rag Hands” by Nishme Súmar and Michelle Magot; “Tree and Child” by Helmut Jerí Pabón; “Kumy to the rescue of planet Earth” by Juan Tuesta Gogny; “Noa’s closet” by Maricarmen González; “Courage” by Katherine Medina Rondón and “Tunki and the Ranger Children” by Janice Ferrand. The best of this section: “Kintsugi”, the silent and sublime notebook by Issa Watanabe.

Non-fiction

An enormous rescue was that of Peter Elmore when he was in charge of the edition of “Tradition and rebellion in contemporary English poetry”, an irreverent and brilliant doctoral thesis by Antonio Cisneros, an unusual new volume in the work of one of the greatest poets of Peru during the second half of the 20th century. The memoirs of Carmen Ollé, “Destino: vagabunda” are based on a sharp look at the events and beings that populated and populate a restless life and rich remembrances. “Entirely and eternally” compiles a large number of unpublished letters by Javier Heraud and for that reason alone it is mandatory consultation. Abelardo Sánchez León made his debut as an essayist in “Torrentes en pugna” where he oscillates between insightful notes and some ideological arbitrariness.

Very good year for film criticism: the indefatigable Isaac León Frías shouldered two collective volumes: “In the Extramurals of History” about Pier Paolo Pasolini and “Ruptures and Openings” about Jean-Luc Godard. Ricardo Bedoya made a pivotal contribution to the study of contemporary cinema with his monumental (and very well written) “From the blockbuster to the self-portrait.” Finally, Sebastián Pimentel ordered and selected the reviews of him published in the cultural press over two decades in “Image and criticism.”

The list of relevant books is extensive: “Crónicas maricas”, addictive and informed testimony by Javier Ponce Gambirazio; “Gregorian Chants”, the correspondence that the great Gregorio Martínez maintained with Víctor Campos Ñique; “A barbarian in Paris”, by Mario Vargas Llosa; “Ten warm stories of Peruvian youth music”, edited by popular culture expert Hugo Lévano; “Presidents by accident” by Cristopher Acosta; “The Secrets of Elvira” by Hugo Coya; “Legacies of War” by Kimberly Theidon; “Danger: order to shoot”, new research by José Alejandro Godoy; “We will remain until the end”, sharp hardcore chronicle by Carlos Torres Rotondo and Richard Nossar Gastañeta; “From the heart of rural education”, by Daniela Rotalde; “Of monsters and cyborgs”, a rare and striking little book by Margarita Saona; “The Years” by Alonso Cueto; “Political reform” by Fernando Tuesta; “Sadness is forbidden” by Sofía Macher Batanero; “Visiting Day” by Marco Avilés; “Vidas unarmed” and “Disappeared”, shocking incursions by Teresina Muñoz Najar; the reissues of “El deportedo”, an excellent profile of Eudocio Ravines by Federico Prieto Celi and of “Gato cerca” by Fernando Ampuero; “The music of the spheres” by Raúl Romero Tassara and “Contiguity of corpses” by Helen Garnica.