| José María Arguedas | |
| Birth Name: | José María Arguedas Altamirano |
| Birth Date: | 18 January 1911 |
| Birth Place: | Andahuaylas, Peru |
| Death Place: | Lima, Peru |
| Resting Place: | Parque José María Arguedas, Andahuaylas |
| Occupation: | Writer, poet, educator, anthropologist, ethnologist, journalist, translator |
| Alma Mater: | National University of San Marcos |
| Language: | Quechua, Spanish |
| Movement: | Indigenismo |
| Children: | Vilma Victoria Arguedas Ponce |
José María Arguedas Altamirano (18 January 1911 – 2 December 1969) was a Peruvian novelist, poet, and anthropologist. Arguedas was an author of mestizo descent who was fluent in the Quechua language. That fluency was gained by Arguedas’s living in two Quechua households from the age of 7 to 11. First, he lived in the Indigenous servant quarters of his stepmother's home, then, escaping her "perverse and cruel" son, with an Indigenous family approved by his father. Arguedas wrote novels, short stories, and poems in both Spanish and Quechua.
Generally regarded 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 idiom that blended Spanish and Quechua and premiered in his debut novel Yawar Fiesta.
Notwithstanding 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]
José 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 El Sexto 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 overdose 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: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.
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. 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.
Arguedas wrote his poems in Quechua and later translated them into Spanish.
In 2011, on the occasion of the centenary of José María Arguedas's birth, various activities were planned in honor of the indigenist novelist. The first of these was the proposal for the Government of Peru to declare 2011 as the "Year of the Centenary of the Birth of José María Arguedas". However, this was set aside, and on December 31, 2010, President Alan García declared 2011 as the "Year of the Centenary of Machu Picchu for the World," also commemorating the centenary of the rediscovery of the Inca citadel in 2011. This decision sparked controversy, as many believed it was unfair not to dedicate the year to one of Peru's greatest scholars.
On his centenary, January 18, 2011, various activities were held in his honor. In Lima, a parade organized by the Catholic University Theater (TUC) started from the Congress of the Republic, down Abancay Avenue, to the Parque Universitario, featuring floats, stilt walkers, and typical characters from Arguedas's literature. An artistic performance followed, incorporating texts, testimonies, poems, excerpts from his works, and figures like the "Zorro de Arriba" and the "Zorro de Abajo", using masks and a large cast of actors. The event continued at the historic Casona of the National University of San Marcos, where the Minister of Culture inaugurated the exhibition "Arguedas and Popular Art".
In Andahuaylas, Apurímac, more than 5,000 people paraded through the city from seven in the morning, accompanied by folk dances and the scissors dance. The celebration began with a Quechua mass at 7:00 a.m. in the Church of San Pedro, followed by the ringing of bells.[11]
In Bermillo de Sayago—the town that served as a study site for his doctoral thesis "The Communities of Spain and Peru"—a tribute was held under the slogan "Peru in the 'Sayaguese Soul', Bermillo de Sayago, 1958, in the Light of Arguedas".
In July 2022, a new 20 sol banknote featuring a photograph of José María Arguedas taken by artist Baldomero Pestana was issued. The issuance was controversial because the BCRP did not seek permission from the photographer to use the image.[12]