El mundo andino en la obra de Caesar Vallejo (The Andean world in the works of Caesar Vallejo)

This study considers the important presence of the Andean world in the literary works of the Peruvian writer, César Vallejo. Though his works are numerous, various, and complex, the appearance of his home town, the Andean landscape, the Inca heritage, and the human and social conflicts of the Peruvian inhabitant can be extensively found in them. This occurrence can be explained by the different tendencies of Peruvian indigenismo at his time, but also by Vallejo’s lively experience of the Peruvian sierra, and his particular thought and sensibility to the indigenous people and their land, history, and social issues. Based on Vallejo’s journalist chronicles and articles, this study identifies which indigenist and regionalist authors he admired the most and influenced his literary production. It also reveals Vallejo’s complex opinion about indigenismo which involves an ethnical identification with the native people, a profound sense of authenticity and autochthonism, and a responsible insertion in the creative spirit of the nation, as suggested by the positivist view of race. Vallejo’s complete works of poetry, narrative and theater have been analyzed under a thematic inquiry in order to establish which components of the Andean world are present. This study finds that remembrances of his home town, family, the Andean landscape, and bucolic life are mostly related to poetry. Evocations of the Inca civilization happen in his modernist poetry, especially in Los heraldos negros [The black heralds], the novel Hacia el reino de los Sciris [Towards the kingdom of the Sciris], and the drama La piedra cansada [The exhausted stone]. The social vindication of the Indians is induced by the novel El tungsteno [The tungsten] and the short story “Paco Yunque.†In Cuatro cuentos [Four short stories], other social issues arrive, manifesting a multiplicity of feelings. The overall appreciation of these findings shows that Vallejo’s indigenismo is mostly caused by his attachment and sensitivity to the Andean people and homeland, and that every tendency he endorses and genre he uses gives him the opportunity to emphasize some aspects of the indigenous world.