Generally considered one of the greats of 20th century Peruvian letters, Arguedas was born in the province of Andahuaylas in the southern Peruvian Andes. He was brought up in poverty amongst the QuechuaIndians, and knew Quechua before he knew Spanish. Eventually he ended going to the Universidad Nacional Mayor de San Marcos where he studied anthropology. He worked as an anthropologist for the rest of his life.
Arguedas began by writing short stories about the Indian environment he was brought up in, in a Spanish highly influenced by Quechuasyntax and vocabulary. By the time of his first novel, Yawar Fiesta, he had begun to explore the theme that would obsess him for the rest of his career: the clash between (white) 'civilised' civilisation, and the Indian, 'traditional' way of life. In this he was part of the Indianista movement in South American literature. He continued to explore this theme in his next two books Los Ríos Profundos (trans. "Deep Rivers") (1961) and Todos los Sangres (1964). Despite the continued influence of Indian grammar on his style, these remained more or less in the realist tradition. Arguedas had remained moderately optimistic about the possibility of a rapprochement between the forces of 'tradition' and the forces of 'modernity' up until this point, but as the 'sixties developed he became more pessimistic. In his last work El zorro de arriba y el zorro de abajo (Trans. "The Fox From Up Above and the Fox From Down Below") (1969) he abandoned realism for a more postmodern approach. This novel expressed his despair that the 'primitive' ways of the Indians could survive against the onslaught of modern technology and capitalism. In a deep depression, Arguedas committed suicide in 1969.
Works Available in English
Deep Rivers (2002) Waveland Press. ISBN 157766244X
Yawar Fiesta (2002) Waveland Press. ISBN 1577662458
The Fox from Up Above and the Fox from Down Below (2000) University of Pittsburgh Press. ISBN 0822957183
Critical Studies
Ciro A. Sandoval and Sandra M. Boschetto-Sandoval (eds) Jose Maria Arguedas. (1998) Ohio University Press. ISBN 0896802000
Arguedas chronicled the social, economic, cultural and linguistic transformations wrought by urbanization and the massive migrations of highland Indians to Peru's coastal cities.
Arguedas became prominent in Peruvian culture and politics, and he was appointed to many governmental and cultural positions, including director of the National History Museum.
Arguedas believed much of his work was the product of a “bedeviled struggle with language.†His work reflects an attempt to bring forms of consciousness and reality he experienced and most easily expressed in Quechua to readers of Spanish, the language of the Quechua people's oppressors.
Jose was born in the province of Andahuaylas in the southern Peruvian Andes.
Arguedas was the son of Victor Manuel Arguedas Arellano and Victoria Altamirano Navarro.
JoseMaria then received the Javier Prado Prize from his graduating thesis “La evolucion de las comunidades indigenas.” Although Jose was a Lingustic and Social Anthropologist he expressed the need for the Indian culture to be depicted realistically in his fictional novels.
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