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Prose: César Vallejo: Some New Texts (Part Ii)
Prose: César Vallejo: Some New Texts (Part Ii)
Carlos Fernández
University College London
Valentino Gianuzzi
Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú
p ro s e
cated much later. The first one was found by Jorge Kishimoto
and Ricardo Silva-Santisteban (p.c.) in 1992, in one of Antenor
Orrego’s scrapbooks, where it was kept undated and without a
bibliographical reference. Here is our transcription and annota-
tion of this first text:
la intelectualidad de trujillo
this text. We should add that for the other two texts, Spelucín seems to have
relied only on undated clippings. This is suggested by his error with regard to
the date of the first one, written, according to him, ‘en la primera quincena de
febrero’ (1962 [1959]: 85), while it actually appeared on 18 January, and his
vague dating of the second one, ‘escrito en los primeros días de Marzo’ (1962
[1959]: 87), which belies the trend towards chronological precision through-
out his paper. This is also suggested by Spelucín’s own reference to ‘viejos libros
de recortes’ as source of information for his essay (1962 [1959]: 35). Juan
Espejo Asturrizaga was the first to offer full transcriptions and bibliographical
references for these texts (1965: 213-19).
The text was reprinted for the first time in Quevedo, No. 1, 28 July 1992,
pp. 2-3. A facsimile of the clipping was printed in Vallejo 2002b: 10-12. Its
exact bibliographic location was given in Fernández & Gianuzzi 2006.
The announcement of the winners appeared in La Nación, Lima, 2 January
1914, p. 4. Orrego came in fourth place, after Abraham Valdelomar (who won
with ‘El caballero Carmelo’), Luis Antonio Eguiguren and Vicente Farfán.
UCL Centre of César Vallejo Studies, N° 13 (October, 2008)
The contest’s judges were Emilio Gutiérrez de Quintanilla, Víctor Andrés Be-
launde, Carlos Wiesse and Enrique Bustamante y Ballivián.
‘Egolatría alemana’ appeared in La Reforma, 2 June 1915, p. [1] and was
reprinted in El Heraldo, Cajamarca, on 16 November 1917, p. [1]. We have
been unable to locate yet the story ‘Evocación colonial’.
UCL Centre of César Vallejo Studies, N° 13 (October, 2008)
In his article on la Bohemia of Trujillo, Juan Parra del Riego comments fa-
vourably on this work by Luis Armas, of which he writes: ‘un brillante ensayo
de novela nacional [ . . . ] admirable por el verismo descriptivo del medio de
una de nuestras haciendas del Norte y la observación ágil y exacta de tipos lo-
cales’ (1916: 1). ‘Tana’ appeared in installments in the magazine Iris, Nos. 3-5,
Trujillo, 30 June, 15 and 31 July, pp. 7-11, 10-15 and 6-11.
Later information on Iris (Spelucín 1962 [1959]: 44; Espejo Asturrizaga
1965: 38; Orrego 1989: 50) mentions Garrido and Armas as the main driving
forces of the magazine. Six issues of Iris were published between 15 May and
15 August 1914, and among the collaborators were Garrido, Armas, Orrego,
Óscar Imaña, Felipe Alva, Carmen Rosa Rivadeneyra and Víctor Alejandro
Hernández. The magazine also published texts by Federico More, Luis Gón-
gora, José Santos Chocano, José Gálvez, Enrique López Albújar and Delmira
Agustini. A collection of Iris is available at the Biblioteca Nacional del Perú
(BNP).
Federico Esquerre Cedrón (1889-1968), a little-known member of la Bo-
hemia—and frequently mistaken for his nephew, the artist Julio Esquerre,
Esquerriloff (for example, in a recent book about Haya de la Torre: Chang-Ro-
dríguez 2007: 138 and 365)—was Vallejo’s classmate at the university, taking
with him classes in the Faculty of Letters as well as that of Law, between 1913
and 1917 (see Culquichicón 1994-95). Esquerre’s article mentioned here is
UCL Centre of César Vallejo Studies, N° 13 (October, 2008)
11
Óscar A. Imaña (1893-1968) was, along with Vallejo, the most prolific
poet of la Bohemia, despite having never published a poetry collection. In
1915 he won the ‘Day of Spring’ literary contest with his poem ‘Canto a la
Primavera’ (published in La Reforma on 24 September 1915, pp. [2-3]). The
sonnet ‘Cansancio’ mentioned by Vallejo appeared in El Heraldo, Cajamarca,
30 April 1918, p. [1]. An ealier version, titled ‘Alas del cansancio’, was pub-
lished in Balnearios on 21 October 1917. Juan Espejo Asturrizaga tells an
anecdote according to which Vallejo memorized this sonnet (1965: 55-56).
12
The poet Alcides Spelucín (1895-1976), a famous member of la Bohemia
of Trujillo, left for New York on 4 July 1917 (according to a note printed in La
Reforma that day). Although some of his poems appeared from time to time in
the periodicals of Trujillo, he did not return to Peru until 1922.
13
Vallejo refers to the now well-known painter Macedonio de la Torre (1893-
1981), who during an artistic meeting at his house in Trujillo, showed his
most recent sculptures (see part I). A picture of one of his sculptures was
printed in Variedades, No. 504, Lima, 27 October 1917.
UCL Centre of César Vallejo Studies, N° 13 (October, 2008)
César A. Vallejo.
Lima, marzo de 1918.
14
This valuable letter was first published by Juan Espejo Azturrizaga (1965:
193-96; facsimile facing page 192).
15
According to Espejo, other members of this group were Santiago R. Vallejo,
Víctor Alejandro Hernández, Daniel Hoyle, Pedro Abraham del Solar M. Q.,
Luis Herrera and Enrique Echeverría. Not much is known about the relation-
ship between the two groups, about which Santiago Vallejo wrote: ‘Es cono-
cido en Trujillo que mientras el grupo de Garrido o sea el de César Vallejo,
UCL Centre of César Vallejo Studies, N° 13 (October, 2008)
La intelectualidad en Trujillo
18
The writer and journalist Santiago R. Vallejo (1893-?) was editor of La Re
forma until 1915 and, in the following years, took different posts in many of
Trujillo’s newspapers, such as El Federal, La Industria and La Libertad. His book
Del propio sentir (Trujillo, Tipografía Olaya, 1914) collects many texts that had
been published in La Reforma. Strangely, he appears among the members of
la Bohemia mentioned by Juan Parra del Riego in his famous article, where
he writes: ‘Entre los prosistas distínguense primeramente, Santiago R. Vallejo
que hace dos años publicó un precioso libro de crónicas y cuentos, “Del propio
sentir”, al que no le regateó elogios el poeta Carrasquilla Mallarino en un pe
riódico de Panamá’ (1916: 1). In 1920, as director of the newspaper La Liber
tad, he signed the petition from Trujillo’s journalists in favour of the release of
César Vallejo (see Patrón Candela 1992: 350, where the transcription reads J. N.
Vallejo, instead of S. R. Vallejo; compare with the facsimile on page 348). There is
a Spanish edition of his novel Senda abajo (Madrid, Talleres Gráficos El Mundo,
1925), which must be the same ‘Cuesta abajo’ mentioned here.
1. ‘La intelectualidad de Trujillo’, La Crónica, Lima, 7 March 1918, p. 9.
UCL Centre of César Vallejo Studies, N° 13 (October, 2008) 11
LA INTELECTUALIDAD DE TRUJILLO
The same search through the periodicals from Lima which al-
lowed us to rescue this lost text, allows us now to clear as well a
19
Felipe Alva (1888-1975) was another poet from Trujillo who never pub-
lished a book of poetry. His work appeared in the magazines Iris and La Se
mana and in the newspapers La Reforma, La Industria and El Heraldo (Caja-
marca), as well as in Lima’s Variedades. A recent book collects part of his poetry
(Alva 2007).
12 UCL Centre of César Vallejo Studies, N° 13 (October, 2008)
20
The call for works was published in Variedades, No. 712, 22 October 1921;
the results appeared—alongside a picture of Vallejo—in Variedades, No. 743,
27 May 1922. The same picture is printed with Vallejo’s story, published in
Variedades, No. 746, 17 June 1922 (facsimile in Vallejo 1999b: 141-144).
2. Call for works for the Entre Nous Prize. Variedades, No. 712, Lima, 22 October 1921.
3. Winners of the Entre Nous Prize. La Crónica, Lima, 22 May 1922.
UCL Centre of César Vallejo Studies, N° 13 (October, 2008) 15
Hemos tenido ocasión de ver las pruebas del curso de Geografía Ele-
mental del Perú,21 que afanosamente está preparando un compatriota
nuestro en París. Se trata de un trabajo con que su autor corresponde
las gestiones que hiciera la Sociedad Geográfica de Lima ante el go-
bierno para enviarlo á Europa. El autor es el señor Hércules Arrigoni,
cumplido é inteligente empleado, que ha desempeñado con brillante
éxito el puesto de auxiliar del cartógrafo de dicha sociedad, trabajan-
do algunos años en bien y provecho del país.
Desde todo punto de vista, Arrigoni ha cumplido satisfactoria-
mente su cometido, y la Sociedad Geográfica de Lima no tiene más
que sentir verdadera satisfacción en presencia de la conducta de su
recomendado.
Los méritos de este joven autor sobresalen más, si se tiene en
cuenta que desde hace dos años le fué suspendido el auxilio econó-
mico prometido por el gobierno, lo que no ha sido inconveniente
para seguir cumpliendo con todo acierto su misión, defendiendo los
intereses nacionales desde las columnas de la prestigiosa revista ‘La
Geografía’, donde Arrigoni colabora continuamente y en cuyo cuer-
po redactor goza ya de marcado prestigio.22
21
The book was published as Geografía elemental del Perú: curso especial para
los alumnos de la sección preparatoria. Paris, Maison Forest, 1924.
22
Arrigoni collaborated on the French magazine La Géographie, where in
Vol. XXXIX, No. 3, March 1923, an article written by him appears with a
Peruvian map in which the territories then in dispute with Chile, Ecuador
and Colombia, appear as part of the country. Thus, the defence of national
interests to which Vallejo refers seems to be the defence of the limits by that
time disputed. This concern had also motivated a letter written by Arrigoni
16 UCL Centre of César Vallejo Studies, N° 13 (October, 2008)
addressed to the president of the Sociedad Geográfica de Lima. The letter was
published in La Crónica on 1 March 1924, p. 3, and in it Arrigoni lamented
the edition of a Peruvian map which did not mark the ‘Territorio ocupado por
Chile’ (i.e. the provinces of Tacna and Arica, which remained under controver-
sial possession until the Treaty of Lima in 1929). Part of the letter read: ‘Ojalá
pueda darse una ley en el Perú en la que, toda edición geográfica que tocara
límites internacionales fuera controlada por la Sociedad Geográfica de Lima,
ya sea tratándose de oficiales o particulares; pues he tenido ocasión de ver más
de una vez ciertos mapas trazados por individuos que sin tener el menor con-
cepto de los límites internacionales, han hecho ediciones que son enteramente
perjudiciales a los intereses del Perú’. These national interests, which are also
addressed in Arrigoni’s book, are without a doubt what motivated Vallejo to
write that the book ‘es indispensable en la vida civil y militar’ and that it would
be employed by ‘nuestros niños y soldados’.
4. Fragment of ‘Una obra de mérito’, El Comercio, evening edition,
Lima, 17 September 1924, p. 4.
18 UCL Centre of César Vallejo Studies, N° 13 (October, 2008)
23
The letter, dated 10 September 1923, reads: ‘Hace dos meses más o me-
nos que llegó el poeta Vallejo con un compañero suyo, un muchacho Gálvez
Orrego de Trujillo. Vallejo traía, del querido loquito Casterot, el encargo de
buscarme y, según supe por Arrigoni, había averiguado ya mi dirección en el
Consulado y pensaba buscarme’ (Silva 1975: 241).
24
This is documented in a note which appeared in La Reforma on 23 Decem-
ber 1912, p. [2], where Hércules Arrigoni is mentioned as winning a prize in
the end-of-the-year awards at the Colegio San Juan de Trujillo.
UCL Centre of César Vallejo Studies, N° 13 (October, 2008) 19
los mutilados
César VALLEJO.
Paris, 1923.
The rest of the prose texts which we have found in our research
comes from another Trujillo periodical, La Industria. Among
them, one stands out: the one titled ‘Hacia el reino de los Sciris’,
which is the first known published fragment25 of the novel of the
same name, and which was not published in its entirety until
1967, almost thirty years after Vallejo’s death.26 This text, which
we transcribe here (see image 6), was published in La Industria
on 1 January 1924, and reveals two important details about the
novel: it shows that what is today considered the general title of
the entire work used to be the title of just one chapter, and it
questions the date that appears in the typescript kept at the BNP,
according to which the novel was begun in 1924.27
25
The chapter was first republished by Samuel Hooker, who does not give
details in his edition of the text about his information source (1989: 17-20).
He offers in his reprint a facsimile of the dedication (p. 17), but does not
reproduce the epigraph which mentions that the text is just a fragment of the
novel El candor de la tierra.
26
Although not mentioning that they were part of a larger work, two other
fragments of Hacia el reino… appeared during Vallejo’s lifetime, under the
titles ‘Una crónica incaica’ (La Voz, Madrid, 22 May 1931, p. 7, under the
heading ‘Cuentos peruanos’) and ‘La danza del situa’ (La Voz, Madrid, 17 June
1931, p. 7, under the heading ‘Cuentos extranjeros’). Both texts are reprinted
in Vallejo 2002b: 885-89. Other fragments of the novel appeared posthu-
mously in 1944: ‘Hacia el reino de los Sciris’. Nuestro Tiempo, Nos. 1-3, Lima,
January-March, pp. 33-34, 41-42 and 24-27.
27
A typescript of the novel is kept at the BNP (code E22 90). As with many
of Vallejo’s typescripts in this library, they are a posthumous fair copy of an
original which is now lost. In another typescript kept at the BNP, ‘Temas y
notas teatrales’ (code E22 91), Vallejo refers to the novel in a note whose date
(‘vers 1933-36-37’) is probably not his own: ‘Acordarse de la atmósfera tropi-
cal y andina de aquella mi novela “El condor [sic] de la tierra”. Acordarse de
la escena de las máquinas en “Lock-out”’ (cf. Vallejo 1999a: 499). In a future
essay we will try to examine and describe in full all the manuscripts housed
by the BNP.
UCL Centre of César Vallejo Studies, N° 13 (October, 2008) 23
On the other hand, the publication of this text, and the re-
printing of two others in 1923 and 1924 is evidence for the sup-
port that Vallejo’s fictional prose received from José Eulogio
UCL Centre of César Vallejo Studies, N° 13 (October, 2008) 27
28
‘Fabla salvaje. Novela corta de César A. Vallejo’ appeared in La Industria,
Trujillo, in 1923, on 24 June, p. 2 (chapters I-II); 1 July, pp. 4-5 (chapters III-
IV); 7 July, pp. 4-5 (chapters IV-VI); and 15 July, p. 4 (chapters VI-VIII).
29
Much better known until now has been the support Garrido gave Vallejo as
a poet, although Vallejo’s collaboration with Garrido’s most ambitious cultural
project, the magazine Perú, has still not been considered yet to its full extent.
7. Illustration from «Cera», La Industria, Trujillo, 22 April 1924, p. 5.
UCL Centre of César Vallejo Studies, N° 13 (October, 2008) 29
30
J. M. ‘César A. Vallejo’. La Industria, Trujillo, 21 June 1923, p. [1]. What
seems to be a reference to the controversy of 1917, in which Garrido took part
(see part III), and the fact that the author prefers the poems of Los heraldos
negros over those of Trilce, appear to corroborate this text’s authorship, since
Garrido, in his own work as well as in that of others, always had a preference
for nativistic themes, and was always closer to the postmodernista aesthetic
than to the avant-garde. Finally, the favourable commentary of Vallejo’s first
novel, which had been serialized a few weeks before in La Industria, are one
more intimation of the name behind the initials.
30 UCL Centre of César Vallejo Studies, N° 13 (October, 2008)
Notas Bibliográficas
La novela El Tungsteno de César Vallejo
Years later, José Eulogio Garrido published, on the day after Vallejo’s death,
31
one of the first obituaries know to date (La Industria, Trujillo, 16 April 1938,
p. [1]). A transcription of this text can be found in Espejo 1965: 142, where it
was reprinted for the first time.
UCL Centre of César Vallejo Studies, N° 13 (October, 2008) 31
wo rk s c i t e d
Alva, Felipe
2007 Felipe Alva, un poeta olvidado. Poemas inéditos. Lima: [Viuda
de Mariátegui e Hijos].
Chang-Rodríguez, Eugenio
2007 Una vida agónica. Víctor Raúl Haya de la Torre. Testimonio de
parte. With photographs and texts by Alberto Vera La Rosa y
Tito Agüero. Lima: Fondo Editorial del Congreso del Perú.
Coyné, André
1949 ‘Apuntes biográficos de César Vallejo’. Mar del Sur, No. 8, No-
vember-December, pp. 45-70.
Culquichicón, Yeconías
1994-95 ‘César Vallejo, alumno universitario’. Norte: Revista del Instituto
34 UCL Centre of César Vallejo Studies, N° 13 (October, 2008)
Hart, Stephen M.
2007 Stumbling Between 46 Stars: Essays on César Vallejo. London:
Centre of César Vallejo Studies.
Jofré, Manuel
2005 ‘Cultura y literatura en la revista Claridad’. Anales de la Uni
versidad de Chile, Sixth Series, No. 17, December.
Monguió, Luis
1950 ‘César Vallejo, vida y obra’. Revista Hispánica Moderna, xvi,
No. 1-4, pp. 1-82.
Orrego, Antenor
1989 Mi encuentro con César Vallejo. Edited by Luis Alva Castro.
Bogota: Tercer Mundo Editores.
Spelucín, Alcides
1962 [1959] ‘Contribución al conocimiento de César Vallejo y de las
primeras etapas de su evolución poética’. Aula Vallejo, n.os 2-3-4,
Córdoba [Argentina], pp. 29-104. [This lecture was read at
the César Vallejo Symposium that took place in the Universi-
dad Nacional de Córdoba, between 12 and 15 August 1959.
According to the colophon, this number of Aula Vallejo was
printed on 15 May 1963.]
Vallejo, César
1967 Novelas y cuentos completos. Lima: Francisco Moncloa.
1999a Teatro completo I. Edited by Ricardo Silva-Santisteban and Ceci-
lia Moreano. Lima: Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú.
1999b Narrativa completa. Edited by Ricardo Silva-Santisteban and Ce-
cilia Moreano. Lima: Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú.
2002a Correspondencia completa. Edited by Jesús Cabel. Lima: Ponti-
ficia Universidad Católica del Perú.
2002b Artículos y crónicas completos. Edited by Jorge Puccinelli. Lima:
Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú.
Vallejo, Santiago
1952 Trujillo en estampas y anécdotas. Lima: Crédito Editorial
Universitas.