César Calvo Soriano (26 July 1940 – 18 August 2000) was a Peruvian poet, journalist, and author. Calvo was part of the "Generación del Sesenta" ("Generation of Sixty"), a group of prominent Peruvian poets that came of age in the 1960s. Considered an important voice in the literature of Peru and the Amazon basin, his work has been celebrated in Latin America and a novel translated into Italian and English.
Calvo was born in Iquitos, Loreto, Peru. He was a son of César Calvo de Araujo the Peruvian painter.[1]
His first chapbook of poetry was published in 1960 when he was twenty; it drew literary praise. At Universidades Nacional Mayor de San Marcos in Lima, his subjects were literature, psychology, and law. He continued to write poetry. In 1974 Calvo was awarded First Prize of the Concurso Hispanoamericano de Literatura, by which he had been honorably mentioned in 1960. In 1976 his works won him the Premio Nacional de Poesía of Peru.
His occupation in journalism included his youthful founding of Expresso in Lima. For several decades he actively participated in newspapers, magazines, and later television. In politics on the left, Calvo was known to be friendly and spontaneous. Apparently he struck up conversations with a wide variety of people, making little distinction as to class, race, social position, or culture.
He once led the Instituto Nacional de Cultura en Iquitos. He also served in Iquitos as Director of the Fundación Pro Selva ("Foundation for the Forest"), involved in the protection of the Amazon ecology, both flora and fauna. He traveled widely; besides Iquitos, Lima, and Cuzco in Peru, he has resided in London, Paris, Rome, Madrid, and Barcelona. Later he served as Director Artístico of the Conjunto Folklórico Perú Negro.[2] [3]
He died suddenly, his last work Edipo entre los Inkas almost finished. Among his major works: