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José María Arguedas Altamirano (18 January 1911 – 2 December 1969) was a Peruvian novelist, poet, and anthropologist. Arguedas was an author of Spanish descent, fluent in the Native Quechua language, gained by living in two Quechua households from the age of 7 to 11 - first in the Indigenous servant quarters of his step-mother's home, then, escaping her "perverse and cruel" son, with an Indigenous family approved by his father - who wrote novels, short stories, and poems in both Spanish and Quechua.

José María Arguedas.
José María Arguedas.

Generally remembered as one of the most notable figures of 20th-century Peruvian literature, Arguedas is especially recognized for his intimate portrayals of Indigenous Andean culture. Key in his desire to depict Indigenous expression and perspective more authentically was his creation of a new language that blended Spanish and Quechua and premiered in his debut novel Yawar Fiesta.

Despite a dearth of translations into English, the critic Martin Seymour-Smith has dubbed Arguedas "the greatest novelist of our time," who wrote "some of the most powerful prose that the world has known.",[1]


Biography


Jose Maria Arguedas was born on 18 January 1911 in Andahuaylas, a province in the southern Peruvian Andes.[2] He was born into a well-off family, but his mother died when he was two years old. Because of the absence of his father, a lawyer who traveled frequently, and his bad relationship with his step-mother and step-brother, he comforted himself in the care of the family's Indigenous servants, allowing him to immerse himself in the language and customs of the Andes, which came to form an important part of his personality. He went to primary school in San Juan de Lucana, Puquio, and Abancay, and completed his secondary studies in Ica, Huancayo, and Lima.[2]

He began studying at National University of San Marcos (Lima) in 1931;[2] there he graduated with a degree in literature. He later took up studies in Ethnology, receiving his degree in 1957 and his doctorate in 1963. Between 1937 and 1938 he was sent to prison for protesting an envoy sent to Peru by Italian dictator Benito Mussolini.

Arguedas also worked for the Ministry of Education, where he put into practice his interests in preserving and promoting Peruvian culture, in particular traditional Andean music and dance. He was the director of the Casa de la Cultura (1963) and of the National Museum of History (1964–1966).

In 1968, Arguedas was awarded the Inca Garcilaso de la Vega literary prize,[3] where he gave his famous[4][5] speech No soy un aculturado (I am not an acculturated man), which has been described by academic sources as a "powerful"[6] embracing of his mixed heritage.[7]

Arguedas' depression became a crisis in 1966, leading him to a first suicide attempt by overdoes on April 11 of that year. After the suicide attempt, his life dramatically changed. To treat his illness, he contacted the Chilean psychiatrist Lola Hoffman, who recommended, as a treatment, that he continue writing. Following her instructions, he published another book of short stories "Amor Mundo" and worked on what would be his posthumous work: The Fox From Up Above and the Fox From Down Below.

On November 29, 1969, Arguedas locked himself in one of the university bathrooms and shot himself at the National Agrarian University in La Molina,[8] leaving behind very specific instructions for his funeral, a diary depicting his depression, and the final unfinished manuscript of The Fox From Up Above and the Fox From Down Below.

This work includes portions of Arguedas's diary, memories of his distressing childhood, thoughts on Peruvian culture, and his reasons for suicide. He depicts his struggle between his desire to authentically illuminate the life of the Andean Indians and his personal anguish trapping him in depression:

But since I have not been able to write on the topics chosen and elaborated, whether small or ambitious, I am going to write on the only one that attracts me--this one of how I did not succeed in killing myself and how I am now wracking my brains looking for a way to liquidate myself decently..."[9]

The title of the book originates in a Quechua myth that Arguedas translated into Spanish earlier in his life. “El zorro de arriba y el zorro de abajo” refers to the Quechua symbols for life and death, and modernity and tradition.


Literary career


Arguedas began his literary career by writing short stories about the Indigenous environment familiar to him from his childhood. He wrote in a Spanish highly influenced by Quechua syntax and vocabulary.

By the time he published his first novel in 1941, Yawar Fiesta ("Blood Fest"), he had begun to explore the theme that would interest him for the rest of his career: the clash between Western "civilization" and the Indigenous "traditional" way of life. He was thus considered part of the indigenista movement in South American literature, and continued to explore this theme in his next two books Los ríos profundos ("Deep Rivers," 1958) and Todas las Sangres ("All the Bloods," 1964). Yet he also was conscious of the simplistic portrayal of the Indigenous peoples in other "indigenista" literature and worked hard to give the Andean Indians a true voice in his works. This effort was not always successful as some critics contend that Arguedas portrayed Indian characters as too gentle and childlike.[citation needed] Another theme in Arguedas' writing is the struggle of mestizos of Indian-Spanish descent and their navigation between the two seemingly separate parts of their identity. Many of his works also depicted the violence and exploitation of race relations in Peru's small rural towns and haciendas.

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 Peruvian intellectuals became increasingly militant, often criticizing his work in harsh terms for his poetic, romanticized treatment of Indigenous and rural life. An instance of the debate that ensued can be seen in the famous Mesa redonda sobre Todas las Sangres (Roundtable on All the Bloods) of 1965, in which Arguedas's penultimate novel was the object of blunt criticism from several social scientists at the Instituto de Estudios Peruanos.


Bibliography



Fiction



Poetry


Arguedas wrote his poems in Quechua and later translated them into Spanish.


Anthropology and folkloric studies



See also



References


  1. Martin Seymour-Smith, The New Guide to Modern World Literature (New York: Peter Bedrick Books, 1985), pp. 949-950.
  2. Siemens, William L. (1980). "Chronology: José María Arguedas". Review: Literature and Arts of the Americas. 14 (25–26): 12–15. doi:10.1080/08905768008594020 via Taylor & Francis.
  3. "Cincuenta años de "No soy un aculturado", de José María Arguedas - Lee por Gusto". Archived from the original on 2022-05-22. Retrieved 2022-04-02.
  4. Silvia Nagy-Zekmi (April 2001). "Archived copy". Revista Chilena de Literatura (in Spanish). Universidad de Chile: 124. ISSN 0718-2295. Retrieved 2 April 2022. discurso de José María Arguedas pronunciado en la recepción del premio Inca Garcilaso de la Vega en 1968, titulado notoriamente: "No soy un aculturado” […«] Yo no soy un aculturado, yo soy un peruano que orgullosamente como un demonio feliz habla en cristiano y en indio, en español y en quechua»
  5. "Lingüística: LOS ANIMALES EN LA LENGUA QUECHUA". Archived from the original on 2022-05-22. Retrieved 2022-04-02.
  6. Anales del Instituto de Chile, Vol. XXI, Estudios (PDF) (in Spanish). Santiago: Instituto de Chile. 2012. p. 166. Archived (PDF) from the original on 8 January 2022. Retrieved 2 April 2022. José María Arguedas se definió con la expresión "demonio feliz", en un sentido no muy lejano a este: un "individuo quechua moderno", capaz de "hablar en cristiano y en indio, en español y en quechua", y de sentir en su propio fuero interno esa experiencia como una potentísima forma de ser.
  7. Madres y huachos (PDF) (in Spanish). Santiago de Chile: Catalonia. 2007. p. 45. ISBN 978-956-8303-63-1. Archived (PDF) from the original on 22 May 2022. Retrieved 2 April 2022. Arguedas, por su lado, señala lo mestizo latinoamericano con cotal caridad: "Yo no soy un aculturado: yo soy vi peruano que orgullosamente, como un demonio feliz, habla en cristiano y en indio, en español y en quechua" (citado por Valdes: 8). Sin duda, solo un mestizo puede auto-referirse como on demonio feliz.
  8. Alberto Moreiras (5 September 2001). The Exhaustion of Difference: The Politics of Latin American Cultural Studies. Duke University Press. p. 200. ISBN 0-8223-8059-5.
  9. The Fox from Up Above and the Fox from Down Below, p. 10

Sources





На других языках


- [en] José María Arguedas

[es] José María Arguedas

José María Arguedas (Andahuaylas, 18 de enero de 1911-Lima, 2 de diciembre de 1969) fue un escritor, poeta, profesor, antropólogo y etnólogo peruano. Fue autor de novelas y cuentos que lo han llevado a ser considerado como uno de los grandes representantes de la literatura del Perú.[1]

[ru] Аргедас, Хосе Мария

Хосе́ Мари́я Арге́дас Альтамира́но (исп. José María Arguedas Altamirano, 18 января 1911 (1911-01-18), Андауайлас  — 2 декабря 1969, Лима) — перуанский писатель, переводчик, этнограф.



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