They say there are two ways to get to know a country, or perhaps the world: travel through it or read about it. Or both. Peru has wonderful places such as Cuzco, Abancay, the beaches of the north or Arequipa.
We recommend these books to help you discover more about the country:
Conversation in the Cathedral is the third novel by the well-known Peruvian writer Mario Vargas LLosa. Zavalita and Ambrosio, a man of mixed African and indigenous ancestry, talk at La Catedral. At what point did Peru get screwed?” is one of its opening lines, familiar to every Peruvian. The whole nation is here: coast, mountains and jungle; soldiers, students, prostitutes; poverty, unemployment, inequality, traffic, shoeshiners, stray dogs, Muni matches, crimes, car accidents, blackmail, hospitals and drugs. Everything. We are in Peru during General Manuel A. Odría’s dictatorial “Ochenio”.
The fifth novel by Peruvian writer José María Arguedas takes its title from Peru’s racial, regional and cultural diversity. It explores two central ideas: foreign influence through large multinationals and the modernisation of the Indigenous world.
La palabra del mudo is a collection of short stories by Julio Ramón Ribeyro. In brief, intimate portraits, they explore middle-class desolation, failure and urban loneliness: the marginalised, the forgotten, those condemned to lives without connection or a voice. They depict this not only in Lima but elsewhere in the country.