Society for Latin American Studies

The Emerging Literature of the Peruvian Educated UnderclassAuthor(s): Núria VilanovaSource: Bulletin of Latin American Research, Vol. 17, No. 1 (Jan., 1998), pp. 1-15Published by: Blackwell Publishing on behalf of Society for Latin American StudiesStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3339662Accessed: 02/12/2009 19:00

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Bull. Latin Am. Res., Vol. 17, No. 1, pp. 1-15, 1998

Pergamon ? 1997 Society for Latin American Studies Published by Elsevier Science Ltd. Printed in Great Britain

0261-3050/97 $19.00 + 0.00

PII: S0261-3050(96)00027-7

The Emerging Literature of the Peruvian Educated Underclass

NURIA VILANOVA Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico, Ciudad Universitaria, Del

Coyoacan, 04510 Mexico, D.F. Mexico

Abstract-This article attempts to explore the relationship between social change and literature in present-day Peru. It argues that the emergence of new fiction-writers and poets from large social sectors historically marginalised from Peruvian public life is part of a dramatic process of social change by which these sectors are gaining an important role in the transformation of their society. The article concludes that the work of these new writers reflects their search for a distinctive independent expression which mirrors their origins and their attitude towards their surrounding world. ? 1997 Society for Latin American Studies. Published by Elsevier Science Ltd

Key words-Peru, Latin America, literature, Peruvian literature, Latin American literature, social change and literature

INTRODUCTION

The 1970s saw the emergence of new, young poets and fiction-writers who defiantly burst onto the Peruvian literary scene. Most of them shared a humble and sometimes provincial background and many had had or were having a university education. Their work reflected their search for a distinctive independent expression which mirrored their origins and their attitude towards the world surrounding them. While some of this work might at times be undistinguished from a literary point of view and while it is too early to assess its impact from a historical perspective, the significance of this new literature lies in the fact that it has given a literary voice to sectors hitherto condemned to silence, and by doing so has opened new horizons and enriched Peruvian literature.

This article attempts to explore the relationship between this emergent literature and present-day Peruvian society. It argues that social change has played a crucial role in the development of this literature, which is part of a wider process by which popular sectors are gaining a voice in all areas of Peruvian social and public life. Since the middle of the century, mass migration from rural to urban areas has radically changed Peru's demographic distribution. In less than thirty years the once-rural country became predominantly urban. This phenomenon took place at a time when reforms in education had widened access to school enrolment, and above all to university, to social sectors which had been historically marginalized from higher education. Thus, the combination of both migration to the cities and the expansion of education are the most important and dynamic factors in explaining the emergence of the new writers and their literature.

After a brief account of the historical and social background to these writers and their literature, this article will focus on the Movimiento Hora Zero-the group of poets which had the greatest impact in this period; the writers around the magazine Narracion; and

Nuria Vilanova

Cronwell Jara (b. Piura, 1950), the fiction writer most representative of the phenomenon described here.

MIGRATION TO THE Cl 'IES

Internal migration from the countryside to the cities, and especially to Lima, had gradually increased since the end of the nineteenth century. The first significant wave of migrants took place under the government of Augusto Leguia (1919-1930), due to improvements in Lima's infrastructure and the building of a road network connecting the coast with the remote highlands and the isolated jungle. At the same time, the population in the countryside was expanding and the already harsh living conditions were deteriorating. Leguia, therefore, began to dismantle, for the first time in history, geographical barriers which had hitherto isolated Andean Peru from the coast, as part of a developing programme aimed at modernising Peru through capitalism.

However, it was not until the 1940s that migration accelerated to the extent that Peru became predominantly urban. According to the national census, in 1940 the urban population of 2.1 million was less than half the rural population of 4.8 million. By 1972 Peru's population had doubled and the demographic distribution was reversed: 7.9 million Peruvians lived in urban centres and 6.1 in rural areas. By 1991 the national population exceeded 20 million inhabitants, of whom 15.4 were concentrated in urban centres and 6.5 in the countryside.1

Lima, the migrants' main destination, increased its population by three million in the thirty years from 1940 (when the city had just over half a million inhabitants) to 1970, according to the city's official census, which means that these figures can only be taken as an estimate, for about 10 per cent of the shanty-dwellers were not included.2 The major increase took place in the late 1960s and early 1970s, during General Velasco Alvarado's government. By 1984 Lima had reached six million inhabitants, a rate of increase which has continued up to the present.

In addition to the demographic explosion, increasingly depressed conditions in the countryside, the incipient industrial development of the coast, and improvements in transport facilities, other significant causes of migration were the media and education. New horizons were presented to the provincial rural dwellers through the expansion of the mass media in the 1950s and 1960s. Transistor radios reached the highlands as soon as new radio stations were opened all over the country, and in the mid-1950s, television arrived in Peru. Furthermore, newspapers were more widely read due to the increase in literacy amongst the population as a result of education reforms. Moreover, education was increasingly viewed by the lower sectors of society as a means to social and economic advancement. The educational system itself ignored the country's hetero- geneity and was based on a uniform curriculum dominated by urban values and completely detached from rural society. Life in the city was made highly attractive to rural children, whose education bore little relation to their everyday reality.3 Most recently, the war between Sendero Luminoso and the Peruvian army has further contributed to this rural exodus. Caught in the crossfire, the population of affected zones tried to escape to the cities, where, at the beginning of the conflict in the early 1980s, life was safer.

However, for most migrants of recent decades the city meant disappointment, misery and the struggle to survive. The incipient industrialisation of the 1950s and 1960s did not meet

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Literature of the Peruvian Educated Underclass

expectations: demand for labour was very small compared to the influx of newcomers looking for jobs. Besides, most migrants had a rural background and therefore their skills were different from those required in industry. The lack of significant training and education programmes meant that substantial potential was wasted and many migrants ended up as street vendors. High expectations were replaced by frustration, but the endurance, strength and determination of the 'new citizens' enabled them to organise themselves in the stark, hostile city.

Such a process is captured both in fiction and in poetry. One of the most interesting writers to portray the emergence and creation of the new shanty-towns is Cronwell Jara in Montecaderos (1981) and Patibulo para un caballo (1989). Son of immigrants to Lima, Jara is emblematic, both in his life and work, of this new emerging Peru. As for poetry, Enrique Verastegui, an Hora Zero poet, depicts in his poem Libro del maestro en mecanica de tornos the journey to Lima, an allegory of the migratory process.4 Although the poem was published in 1988, when Hora Zero had already broken up, it is representative of the spirit that permeated the group's poetry. It is a symbol of Hora Zero's attempt to capture the reality of the popular classes, who, the young poets believed, would lead a revolutionary transformation of Peruvian society. The poem's central motif is the journey undertaken by thousands of migrants from their homeland to their new destination, a journey which on the metaphorical level symbolises the search for a new Peru:

Saldrds esta noche de tu pueblo, la sierra es azul, el mar verde como un eucalipto, [...] y el mundo que ahora tendras no sera el mundo que

[conociste.

(You will leave your village tonight, the mountains are blue, the sea green as an eucalyptus, [...] and the world that you will have now it will not be [the one you used to know.)

However, it has the effect of conveying a sense of determinism, implying that this journey is dictated by an inevitable and irreversible social process which is uprooting the rural population from its native environment and changing the character of Peruvian society. The outcome of that change is brought out in the second line, where mountains and sea are metonymies for the Andean region and the coast. The attribution to each of them of adjectives that more properly qualify the other-reinforced in the second case by the simile of the eucalyptus, a tree commonly found in the Andes-suggests the breaking down of the traditional gulf between Peru's two main regions and points at the increasing interaction that characterises present-day reality.

WIDENING ACCESS TO EDUCATION

Widening access to education has been one of the most important and dynamic factors of Peruvian social change. This is not because it has provided the low-income sectors with the tools for social advancement-which could have been possible had a more equitable economic development accompanied the introduction of education reforms-but because it

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has given them the opportunity to be part of a formerly restricted preserve of the elite and hence to integrate themselves into various spheres of public life. Indeed, access to formal education became vital to many city-dwellers. The effort made by many settlers is reflected in the proliferation in several shanty-towns of popular libraries, in which most of the books are textbooks. Moreover, the emergence of poets and writers in recent decades from the margins of society is closely linked to the expansion of the university, where most of them began their literary activity.

School enrolment had been growing in Peru since the 1950s, as an outcome of increasing demands by the middle and lower sectors of society, who viewed education as a means to social improvement. In the 1960s, growth in the school population was a general trend in Latin America. During that decade, Peru's investment in education was above the Latin American average. Under Fernando Belaunde Terry's government (1963-1968) the country's education budget was increased from 4 to 5 per cent of its GNP. This increase speeded up school enrolment and Peru came to rank as one of the top Latin American countries as regards the number of people entering school.5 The most dramatic and rapid growth took place in tertiary education. At the beginning of the 1960s, universities underwent great expansion. Facilities for tertiary education increased fourfold between 1961 and 1965, and although most of the universities were located in Lima, the number of universities rose from six in 1955, to twenty in 1963, to thirty in 1968. Reforms were taken even further by Velasco's government (1968-1975). By the end of the 1980s, tertiary education figures for the relevant age group were very similar to percentages in developed countries.6 Moreover, the rise in university enrolment was accompanied by the broadening of the social strata from which students were recruited.

However, these seemingly optimistic and encouraging figures are blurred by two main problems: firstly, the high percentage of re-takers and drop-outs at all levels of schooling and, secondly, poor standards in state education, with a remarkable gap between the quality of public and private institutions, the latter being accessible only to the higher- income sectors.

Furthermore, widening access to advanced secondary and tertiary education perpetuated the myth amongst the low-income sectors that social mobility was possible. However, in Peru, the expansion of education did not take place alongside effective socio-economic reforms, which would have potentially provided more opportunities to those who had invested in their education and training. On the contrary, many qualified people were left with no choice other than low-paid and unsatisfactory jobs. This situation, added to growing social unrest, fostered an already highly politicised university, encouraging social awareness amongst students and perpetuating their radicalisation. By the time of Belauinde's first government, students had become important actors on the social scene. During Velasco's government, most universities opposed the regime's vertical structure of organisation and participation, which had a radical effect on their own internal structure. The government had special interest in controlling student political mobilisation, since they were viewed as important actors in the development of the country. However, the military lost control of the universities and conflict and unrest continued throughout their regime. This was the atmosphere breathed by most of the writers mentioned in this article, who shared the experience of coming from sectors previously denied educational opportunities, but which were now gaining access to university.

Student mobilisation also had an impact upon literary activity, encouraging its proliferation, especially amongst writers of humble background. This was possible in part

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Literature of the Peruvian Educated Underclass

because the Arts, along with Social Sciences, had always been amongst the most popular academic subjects and poetry and writing seminars and workshops increased in proportion to the number of students. In highly politicised universities, literary activity and politics went hand in hand.

AN EMERGING LITERATURE

Certainly Velasco's government gave impetus to the new wave in the Peruvian arts. For although this was the result of a process in which many elements played a role, it is no coincidence that the emergence of young people from humble backgrounds onto the Peruvian literary scene happened during the period Velasco was in power. Indeed, despite its own contradictions, Velasco's government represented the most important attempt at reform hitherto made in Peru. Whilst the basis for the emergence of what the Peruvian sociologist Jose Matos Mar called el desborde popular (i.e. the impact of massive rural migration on urban centres) had been laid since the 1940s, it was under Velasco that it became obvious that the face of Peru was changing.

The urban demographic explosion coincided with significant economic and cultural developments. On the one hand, the lack of an infrastructure capable of absorbing such an increase of population fostered the growth of an informal sector of the economy. On the other, and what is more relevant here, the migrants' presence was becoming increasingly tangible in cities like Lima, ending the criollo monopoly prevailing since colonial times. From music and dance to domestic habits, rural Andean traditions and culture were now visible in the urban environment, though modified by the influence of urban culture. Furthermore, a blend of cultures from the coast, the jungle and the Andes gave rise to new artistic expressions such as the fashionable musical creation chicha, a symbiosis of the Andean huaino, cumbia and salsa.

The future of such a process is still an open debate. Some intellectuals believe that what has been taking place is the indigenizacion of Peruvian society, the realisation of Mariategui's ideal of a moder Peruvian nation in which the Andean ethos plays the hegemonic role. However, such a view is optimistic. The outcome of the process is far from clear and the emergence of an integrated Peruvian nation remains an abstract ideal rather than an imminent reality. In social terms, the crucial question is whether Peruvian society is pursuing a process of true democratisation, which remains to be defined, or whether the present reality is merely perpetuating a turbulent situation. Another key question relates to the nature of the cultural changes which are taking place in contemporary Peru.

The most optimistic interpretation is transculturation, which sees criollo (coastal) culture being transformed by the Andean, while at the same time the latter undergoes the influence of the coast in a reciprocal pattern of cultural transformation. Other analyses have argued for mestizaje, used at a cultural level to describe the symbiosis of different cultures. The term evokes the result of a process by which harmony has been achieved. The non- problematic connotation of mestizaje hides the real conflict between the dominant culture and the oppressed one. Finally, acculturation, in which indigenous culture is absorbed by Western culture of the coast. The process is so complex that none of these concepts are sufficient in themselves to explain and describe its essence.7 There is indeed much evidence to show that the indigenous ethos has been transported to the city by the migrants, as it is also undeniable that sectors which had until recently been marginalised are now able to express their own voice. However, two main questions remain: what is the real economic

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Nuria Vilanova

and political impact and power of these emergent sectors?; and, to what extent can the still prevailing Andean ethos transform a society whose pattern of modernisation is based on Western capitalism?

This social and cultural process had its own impact on literature. What made the 1970s so important was the fact that some of the changes started in the 1920s, when literary production became more representative of the Peruvian nation, were in many ways consolidated. Figures such as Vallejo-or in fiction, Arguedas-had opened through their work a rather more authentic and genuine dimension of their country to Peruvian literary representation. However, it was only in the late 1960s and 1970s that a popular discourse emerged, and new writers from popular backgrounds appeared on the literary scene.

Moreover, the long-standing dualism between cosmopolitan and indigenista literature came to an end. Up to this point, two main tendencies had been present, particularly in fiction-writing: the indigenista, which attempted to portray society from an Andean perspective, and cosmopolitan, which was much closer to Western fiction. Such a distinction matched Mariategui's dualist theory, by which Peru was viewed as a country formed by two antagonistic societies: the modern, dynamic coast, with a capitalist drive, and the traditional, static sierra, feudal in nature. Neither the dualist theory nor the distinction between indigenista and cosmopolitan applies to any description of present-day Peruvian society and its literature. Since the middle of the century, the dramatic changes undergone by Peru have obviously modified its social structures. Migration, the impoverishment of the cities, the lack of infrastructure able to cope with the massive wages of newcomers, the survival strategies of this new urban population and a state increasingly weak as an articulator of popular demands have prompted civil society to take control of its own future. This is essential in order to understand present-day Peru and the democratisation seen in many areas of social and cultural life. This democratisation and the social dynamics that have exposed the constrained heterogeneity of Peruvian society are key elements in understanding both the diversity and fragmentation that distinguish today's literature (which cannot be classified within the traditional canon), and the emergence of writers from marginalised social sectors.

The new emerging literature has had its own expressions both in poetry and in fiction, although it has been more prolific in the case of poetry. This has partly been due to the poor infrastructure of the Peruvian publishing industry, which has hindered the publication of novels which required a longer and slower process of composition, whilst poetry could be published more cheaply and immediately. Nonetheless, narrative production continued to increase, encouraged by prizes and new and small publishing houses which cultivated the new wave of writers. Since the beginning of the 1990s, the growth in narrative production has been dramatic and today the number of short stories and novels published in Peru is far larger than it has ever been.

POETRY DEMOCRATISED

The decade of the 1970s saw the development of a poetry which, in the literary panorama of those days, represented a collective statement against a society that the young poets of the 1970s strove to c.hange through their work and their attitude. The significance of this poetry did not lie in the innovative character of poetic techniques and forms but in the novelty represented by the collective approach to poetry adopted by the young poets of the period.

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Literature of the Peruvian Educated Underclass

Moreover, from a socio-literary point of view, the 1970s meant the opening of poetic activity to broader sectors of society: mirroring a more profound transformation of society, young people from marginal social groups began to write. This is the key to understanding the poetry of this period and the literary and socio-political outlook of this new wave of poets.

One of the main features of the period is the gathering of poets into collective groups. Amongst them, the one that most radically captured the spirit of the times, had most impact and is most representative of the phenomenon described here is Movimiento Hora Zero. Under that name, with its revolutionary connotations,8 young poets, most of them from provincial and humble backgrounds, reacted against their society and their predecessors, aiming to begin a new era in which poetry could play a revolutionary and innovative role. Amongst them, the best known are Jorge Pimentel (b. 1944), Juan Ramirez Ruiz (b. 1946), Mario Luna (b. 1948) and Enrique Verastegui (b. 1950). The main innovation of the group in the history of Peruvian literature was the unified stance that they took towards poetry and society in general; an attitude reflected in their group manifestos and public readings of poetry. Hora Zero found an outlet for their work and ideas by producing their own magazine, also named Hora Zero, and holding public recitals, a fashionable trend at the time. Their approach, indeed, was very much in tune with the spirit of a period that had seen a growth of political mobilisation and regarded joint action as the most effective means of influencing public opinion.

Significantly, up to the 1960s the cradle of the artistic and literary avant-garde had been the ancient university of San Marcos, where most of the poets of the 1950s and 1960s developed their activity. However, despite the fact that a significant group of poets and their review, Estacion Reunida, emerged in San Marcos in the 1970s, the main centre of activity now switched to the new and popular Universidad Nacional Federico Villarreal, created by APRA (Alianza Popular Revolucionaria Americana) in the 1960s. This significant fact mirrors the decentralisation and expansion of education throughout the 1960s and 1970s.

One of the features of Hora Zero's work was their ambivalent relationship with the city which, on the one hand, had given them access to education and a universal culture and, on the other, was the mirror of a nation whose attempts to modernise itself had failed. Certainly, at that time Lima was already a complex city unable to manage the massive wave of newcomers. Its infrastructure did not develop according to the increasing demands being placed upon it and the migrants' expectations in terms of work, housing, etc. were never met. Hence, the urban environment in which the poets of Hora Zero emerged and evolved was one characterised by chaos and confusion. The key to understanding Hora Zero's attitude and poetry is the frustration of the raised expectations of those emergent sectors, which hoped to find, first in Belaunde's and later in Velasco's reform programmes a way out of their poverty and marginality. Moreover, the international astmosphere of euphoria among the left during the 1960s and 1970s encouraged even further the poets' attitude and work.

In tune with these themes, Hora Zero's poets rejected the materialism of Western society and held anti-bourgeois principles which led them to an unconventional life aimed at shocking Lima's traditional society. They led a predominantly nocturnal existence in popular cafes in the centre of the city, where they used to meet and share personal and poetic experiences. Bohemianism, in fact, became the emblem of their rejection of the society around them. With regard to politics, the group had an ambiguous stance towards

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Velasco's regime. Whilst some of its members played an active role in his government, in the scant references to the subject the group shows some scepticism towards the military's reforming and revolutionary programme.9

In fact, they saw themselves as having emerged on the scene at a turning-point of the nation's history, for if on the one hand the failure of previous generations meant that they had inherited a society in a catastrophic state, on the other hand, it fell to them to usher in a new era:

A nosotros se nos ha entregado una catistrofe para poetizarla. Se nos ha dado esta coyuntura para culminer una etapa lamentable y para inaugurar otra mis justa.l0

(We have been given a catastrophe to be turned into poetry. We have been given these circumstances to conclude a dreadful period and to set up a fairer one.)

As implicit in this text, Hora Zero held a messianic view of the poet. The following lines from the Pncallpa edition of their magazine are also illustrative in this respect. Its last page features the sentence 'EL PODERI ATREVERSE/ A HACERLO/ TODO/ PERTENECE/ SOLO A LOS/ POETAS (The power/ to dare/ to do/ anything/ only/ belongs to/ poets), framed by the phrase 'PODER ES POESIA' (Power is poetry), implying that poetry is a vehicle for embracing existence in its totality and the poet a prophet able to guide hllmnnity.

Hora Zero repeatedly expressed in their manifestos the belief that poetry was a dynamic force capable of advancing the revolutionary process through its power to influence people's consciousness:

Consideramos que el poder de la poesia y el arte como forma y factor de conciencia social es energia suficiente capaz de hacer avanzar o hacer retroceder una sociedad en su proceso de evolucion."l

(We believe that the power of poetry and art as form and factor of social consciousness is capable of accelerating or reversing the process of social develop- ment.)

They conceived this process not only in terms of a change of social and political structures, but as a radical break with traditional modes of thought (family structure, human relationships, conventional behaviour, etc.) in order to achieve a total transformation of individuals and society. Accordingly, poetry was perceived as an instrument for liberating minds and enabling people to develop their human potential to the full. Hence, a central tenet of Hora Zero's poetic credo was that 'La poesia es ma 's de uno y es de todo un pueblo' (Poetry is more than one and it belongs to a whole people).'2 In fact, the importance which the group gave to public recitals was born of the belief that poetry should no longer be a solitary, private activity but a dialogue with the community. Moreover, they believed that if poetry had to be taken to the streets, the streets also had to be taken to poetry, that is, that poets should abandon their ivory tower and fully involve themselves in society, sharing the experience of ordinary men and women.

The group rejected their country's poetic tradition (with the exception of a few poets such as Cesar Vallejo and Javier Heraud, the mythical guerrilla poet of the 1960s) and identified themselves with the American Beat Generation and Nicaraguan exteriorismo, led by Ernesto Cardenal. They both held a rebellious attitude towards society and maintained the principle that poetry had to be part of everyday life. They also created a poetic language born of their experience with reality.

Literature of the Peruvian Educated Underclass

Hora Zero aimed at breaking with traditional and rigid forms in favour of a looser, more open type of poem. Sometimes, as in the case of Jorge Pimentel's Ave Soul (1973) or Juan Ramirez Ruiz's Vida Perpetua (1978), they experimented with poetic space, employing visual and typographic devices in the tradition of avant-garde poetry. More generally, they favoured long, rambling poems with varying rhythms and frequent changes of voice. Hora Zero postulated the need for a new poetic language which would reflect the speech patterns of the ordinary person in the street.

La ruptura en elplano lingiistico esfundamental, se trata de ubicar al lenguaje sencillo, popular, directo, duro y sano en la capacidad de expresar toda la energia de una

experiencia latinoamericana en un lenguaje latinoamericano [..] Hallard sus palabras en el habla popular, en el argot, en los giros populares [..J13

(It is essential to achieve a break at the linguistic level; simple, popular, direct, tough and healthy language has to be placed in its capacity to express the whole energy of a Latin American experience in a Latin American language [...] It will find its words in popular discourse, in slang, in popular idioms [...])

Hence, they cultivated a colloquial tone and language, virtually abolishing the distinction between prose and verse. Like the Beat poets and the exterioristas, Hora Zero poets also sought to convey a sense of everyday experience in the Peru of the 1970s by incorporating into their verse elements of the contemporary world around them, such as names of streets, caf6s, the days of the week, cultural and political references. Thus their poetry is frequently placed in the specific setting of modern Lima by references to streets and squares such as La Colmena, la avenida Abancay, la plaza San Martin, by the naming of bars, cafes, cinemas, by allusions to bus routes, by the citing of the menus of popular restaurants, etc. It is also set in the contemporary context by the quoting of dates and times and by allusions to modern technology, to the brand names of commercial products, to political and cultural figures of the period and to recent books and films. Furthermore, the poets of Hora Zero also highlighted their own involvement in everyday reality by citing the names, addresses and telephone numbers of their friends, as in Ramirez Ruiz's poem '810 GONZALEZ PRADA-SURQUILLO/ Telefono 284226/ Isabel Tello Vargas',14 or by referring to their favourite meeting- places, such as the cafes of central Lima-the Palermo, the Chino-Chino, the Wony and the Tivoli. Likewise, their poems often included references to their daily activities, as in the case of the following lines from Enrique Verastegui's En los extramurros del mundo (1970): 'No fumare ni saldre ahora a caminar con Mario hablando de Marx/ de la victoria.'15 'I will not smoke nor will I now go out for a walk with Mario talking about Marx/ about la victoria.' 6 Another illustrative example is Juan Ramirez Ruiz's sequence of poems entitled 'Media docena de inconvenientes para remediar'.17 As the titles of the

poems indicate, the sequence is a kind of personal agenda to remind himself of chores to be done and problems to be sorted out: 'UNO! LE QUITARON LA CIUDAD A MARIO LUNA/ (Paso aqui)'; 'DOS/ MANUEL CASTILLO/ (Esto ocurrio hoy)'; 'TRES/ TERESA/ (Esta sucediendo)'; 'CUATROI IRMA GUTIERREZ/ (Aun sucede)'; 'CINCO/ JUANA CABRERA/ (Tambien esto aun acontece)'; 'SEISI ELLOS QUIEREN SABER QUIEN ES EL HOMBRE/ (Sucedi6)'.

A good illustration of Hora Zero's poetic manner is the following lines from Mario Luna's 'Ya se acerca la viuda de moda':

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Nuria Vilanova

El pasaje cuesta S./. 2.40 si no bdjese. Pollos a [la brasa "Buen Amigo". Tomo miplata [carajo. Agua y desagues.

Se necesita muchacha, cama adentro. Un cafe, pan [solo.'8

(The ticket costs s./. 2.40 otherwise get off. Roast [chicken 'Buen Amigo'. I get my money damn it.

Water and drains. A maid is required, sleeping in. Coffee, bread on its

[own.)

A series of short sentences, following one another in rapid succession, convey the hustle and bustle of an ordinary day in the city. Some reproduce the text advertisements to point out the contradictions of modem Lima, since they evoke in turn a popular eating place, an urban development and the comfortable life of the upper middle classes. Others reproduce popular speech to record snippets of dialogue, on a bus and in a cafe, dialogues which highlight the strains and tensions of modern living and the aggressiveness that is an integral part of the urban experience. The poem thus successfully conveys the feel of the Lima of the 1970s.

Hora Zero constitutes an important development of the history of Peruvian literature, in that the group were the vanguard of the emergent sectors who were opening a space for themselves in the literary scene, bringing fresh life to Peruvian poetry and encouraging the proliferation of poetic activity. Also, their poetic stance of collective work was a real innovation. However, their contribution was less significant than their initial impact led people to expect. In terms of poetry, they were less innovatory than they themselves claimed to be. Poets like Antonio Cisneros (b. 1942) and Rodolfo Hinostroza (b. 1941), whom Hora Zero contemptuously despised, had already given expression in the 1960s to a new anti- authoritarian spirit which broke with the still-prevalent conservative Hispanic tradition, developing a moder poetic discourse in which colloquial language and references from the surrounding world had an important weight. Thus, rather than constitute a radical break with the past, the poetry of Hora Zero was essentially a development and culmination of a process initiated long before. However, the important issue here is that since their emergence, poetic activity has expanded to new sectors of Peruvian society, becoming more representative of Peru's social composition.

THE FICTION OF THE UNDERCLASS

In the field of fiction, in 1966 and against a background of growing left-wing militancy, a Marxist-oriented group of writers published the first issue of their review Narracion, which was to see two more issues in the 1970s (1971 and 1974). Similarly to Hora Zero, the group Narracion was born with a new literary purpose as representative of the revolutionary spirit of the times. They aimed at conveying in their fiction their commitment to the portrayal of their country's socio-political reality. Like the young poets of Hora Zero, the fiction writers of Narracion came from the interior of the country and worked together writing accounts of social and political events and manifestos which expressed their views on literature and other matters. Their ultimate aim was to capture social developments in their fiction.

Despite these similarities, Hora Zero and Narracion should not be seen as two analogous

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groups. Unlike the members of Hora Zero, who emerged as poets with the group, the fiction writers who founded Narracion, like Oswaldo Reynoso (b. 1932) and Miguel Gutierrez (b. 1940), already had individual literary careers and gathered together to produce their review and to express their shared views collectively.

While the impact and influence of the Narracion group should not be overestimated, they did formulate a new approach to narrative production, based on the social dimension of reality as viewed from a popular perspective, conceived through their characters, the interaction between them and their colloquial language. Narracion thus established a new direction in Peruvian fiction, which had its first manifestation in the works of Antonio Galvez Ronceros (b. 1932) and Gregorio Martinez (b. 1942), both of whom had links with the group. However, it was not until the 1970s that the migrant sectors of Limefian society began openly to take a place in the cultural life of the city and, although still marginalised, to speak with a voice of their own.

Amongst these voices, one of the most representative and interesting is that of Cronwell Jara. His life is paradigmatic of the process that has seen the growth of a new urban population and the emergence of an educated sector within it. Jara, the son of immigrants, who lived as a child in a shanty-town and was educated at the University in Lima, is in this sense, like most of Hora Zero's poets, the embodiment of the new Peru.

Jara's work illustrates one of the most striking features of current Peruvian literature: its diversity. Three of his six books draw on personal experience to portray the process of social transformation. Las huellas delpuma (1986) is a compilation of short stories in which the author evokes rural life in small communities located in the highlands of Piura where his family is originally from. The world portrayed is primitive and traditional. It is a rather static universe, distinguished by the harmony between human beings and their environ- ment. Another distinguishing feature is the oppression suffered by the weak at the hands of those who hold power, for within this rural society men use their physical strength to dominate women and, in a parallel way, the political authorities and the Catholic Church exercise control over the community. However, women and the community are shown to be capable of resisting and asserting themselves, demonstrating a resilience and strength of character that make them superior to their oppressors. In fact, throughout the book the ordinary individual is implicitly idealised. Jara's first book depicts, in short, an ordered world that the migration process interrupted; it is a portrayal of the world which precedes that described in the two following books.

Montacerdos (1981) and Patibulo para un caballo (1989a) introduce us to a completely different setting, that of Lima's shanty-towns, peopled by migrants from the provinces who still carry with them the ethos of the rural world that they have left behind. Both books depict the growth of Lima in the first half of the twentieth century from the perspective of its main progatonists, the migrants. They both describe the struggle of the newcomers to find their place in the inhospitable city. An example of such a struggle is that carried out in Patiibulo para un caballo by the community against the authorities who prevent the newcomers from settling on the land they have just invaded in their desperation to find a home. The clash between the police and the shanty-town dwellers mirrors both the traditional polarisation of Peruvian society and the tensions of social change. Significantly, the novel is narrated by a young woman who was part of the community and is now writing a university thesis.

In Montacerdos, though, that fight takes place between the migrants themselves, for the ones who arrive earlier strive to keep their meagre privileges, pushing aside those who have

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not yet settled and have not yet got their own place, which reveals the increasing marginality of each fresh wave of immigrants and the complexity of the problem, as the following paragraph attempts to illustrate:

'Mire mi alferez, esa que ve es mi casa. No, ese muladar no. Es que esos locos nos han invadido ahi. Son peligrosos. Ldrguelos pue. Que se vayan detrds de los cerros, alld hay espacio. Nadie los molestara.'19

(Look sir, this house is my house. No, not this rubbish dump. The problem there is that these crazy people have invaded us. They are dangerous. Kick them out. Let them go to the other side of the hill, there is room out there. Nobody will bother them there.)

Indeed, Montacerdos, unlike Pat'bulo, is permeated by a sense of loss, by the idea that there is not much future in the city for these marginal people, as explit in the next paragraph:

Y en los dias venideros, en el clu de madres discutian si la loca y sus hijos podria o no podria vivir dentro del local. No discutian si mama sabia barrer o no sabia, ni si sabia lavar pocillos o no; discutian si mamd Griselda era loca o no era loca. Si era loca como aquel Yococo y su cerdo, no podria estar en aquel local. Finalmente, por mayoria de votos decidieron que mamd Griselda no ciudaria ni viviria en el local del clu de madres.20

(In the following days, the women at the Mother's Club discussed whether the mad lady and her children should or shouldn't move into the Club premises. They didn't discuss whether Mama could or couldn't sweep, whether she was or wasn't able to wash glasses. They discussed whether Mama Griselda was or wasn't mad. If she were mad like Yococo and his pig, she wouldn't be able to stay there. Eventually, by majority of votes, they decided that Mama Griselda was not going to look after the Club premises, neither was she going to live there.)

In Baba Osaim, cimarron, ora por la santa muerta (Jara, 1989b), published in the same year, Jara abandons his immediate experience to explore Peru's and Latin America's history from the evocation of slavery in colonial times, while in the short stories Agnus Dei (1994) and Intik'a (1995) he relates two fantastic legends which reproduce fragments of Peru's history. The short stories of Babd Osaim... rewrite colonial history from the perspective of the colonised. The main characters of most of these stories belong to a minority group: the black slaves imported from Africa to serve the colonisers. It is, once more, a case of sub- marginality, similarly to mamn Griselda and her children in Montacerdos. In both books, the characters are doubly marginalised, because they do not belong to the predominant marginalised group, the settled dwellers in the shanty-town and the exploited indigenous people in the Colony. By choosing the sub-marginal blacks as the focus of his Babai Osaim..., Jara is portraying a multicultural reality and exploring the roots of present-day reality, creating an alternative mythology as the ideological basis for the new Peru that is emerging in the late twentieth century. Foregrounding the resistance of non-Western cultures to Spanish imperialism, it proposes the model of a multiracial and multicultural society in opposition to the elitist Western model that has prevailed in Peru since colonial times. However, this should not be interpreted as implying a total repudiation of Western culture. Rather, Jara seems to advocate the coexistence of Western and non-Western cultures in an atmosphere of mutual respect and tolerance. How that coexistence is to be brought about remains unclear.

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The recurrent feature which distinguishes Jara's work is the adoption of a popular perspective related to a view of authority as an oppressing force, reinforced through a language that emulates popular discourse and the mythification of the main characters through fantastic elements that elevate ordinary men and women to the category of heroes.

CONCLUSION

This article has attempted to show that social developments have had a profound impact on the literary production of the 1970s-1990s in Peru. That impact manifests itself in the emergence of new writers from marginalised sectors of society and in their new literary perspective and forms, linked to the writers' social background, their experiences and expectations. A brief introduction to the main elements of social change-migration, reforms in education-has been given, attempting to prove that the emergence of these new writers and their literature is part of a wide and dramatic process of change by which new actors from lower and/or marginalised sectors of society began to appear in the political, social and intellectual life of the country.

A group of poets from the 1970s-Movimiento Hora Zero-and a fiction writer- Cronwell Jara-have been chosen to depict the socio-literary phenomenon described here. They have in common the search for a new literary discourse to express their experience and world-view as representatives of the emergent sectors which have been claiming a place in Peruvian society. Hora Zero arose as a new, defiant, collective and dynamic approach to poetry under the banner of its members' social background, and although they turned out to be less innovative than they claimed, their poetry and their poetics represent important innovations in both content and form, particularly in their collective, political approach to poetry and in their colloquial daily discourse and imagery. Whilst their break with the past in terms of poetry was not as radical as they claimed, they did open a fresh poetic space and a new perspective to future generations.

The group Narracion also meant a new and revolutionary approach to fiction-writing. Later Cronwell Jara's fiction explores the history of the marginalised from a class perspective. Las Huellas delpuma (1986) represents an attempt to defme his roots through the evocation of a rural world where the stories are situated and depicts the hardships and struggles of a marginalised peasantry neglected by the state and oppressed by the local powers. While Jara's first book constitutes a kind of pre-history of the migration process, Montacerdos (1981) and Patibulo para un caballo (1989a) mythologise the struggle of the provincial migrants to open a space for themselves in the city in face of a repressive state still controlled by a Westernized Hispanic elite. His other books, Babd Osaim, ora por la santa muerta (1989b), Agnus Dei (1994) and Intik'a (1995) return to colonial history as a way of understanding and explaining the present. Focusing on the experience of Peru's black slave population during the Colony, Babd Osaim... highlights the multicultural diversity of Peruvian present-day society and attempts to create an alternative mythology in order to challenge the established order. Jara always writes from the perspective of the weak and the oppressed and his work brings a new insight into Peruvian fiction, although it sometimes adopts into a rather simplistic approach to situations and characters.

There has been no space in this article to discuss the flourishing poetry written by women, another remarkable and recent development in Peruvian literature, also linked to social change. The growing role of women in society has been paralleled by the emergence of an important production of poetry (and to a lesser extent narrative) written by women.

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However, unlike the poetry and fiction analysed here, the poetry written by women has no class component: its determinant is gender. This is the reason why this poetry, as a global phenomenon, has not been included here.

Today, the Peruvian literary scene is characterised by great productivity, in terms of

quantity, and an impressive diversity of works. Among this, Cronwell Jara and the poets of Hora Zero who carried on after the group broke up hold an interesting position, since they have opened a new literary dimension. It is perhaps true that the quality of their work does not always come up to expectations. However, like the social changes which have given rise to it, its literature is part of an ongoing process which has still not fully defined itself and it remains to be seen how it will evolve. What is certain is that, by breaking through social barriers to give a voice to a hitherto silent majority, and putting forward a new approach to literature and a different aesthetic outlook, poets like the ones who belonged to Hora Zero and writers like Cronwell Jara have contributed to the enrichment of Peruvian literature.

NOTES

1. Peru en mnmeros: 1991 (1991:119). 2. Matos Mar (1961:178). 3. ibid., pp. 173-174. 4. Verastegui (1988:39-50). 5. Avalos (1978: 32-34). 6. Whilst 17 per cent in tertiary eiiialtion was the average amongst countries similar to Peru in national

income, Peru's percentage was 32 per cent, a figure closer to high-income economies such as Belgium- 34 per cent-and the United Kingdom-29 per cent. World Development Report 1992 (1992: Table 29).

7. Rowe and Schelling (1991:18). My use of acculturation, mestizaje and transculturation is based on this book.

8. Hora Zero adopted this name from a poem by the Nicaraguan poet Ernesto Cardenal. 9. Hora Zero-Contra golpe al viento (1978:5).

10. 'Palabras urgentes', in Hora Zero (1970:9). 11. Ramirez Ruiz (1971:109). 12. ibid.., pp. 115. 13. ibid., pp. 111-112. 14. ibid.,p.61. 15. Verastegui (1971:17). 16. I have not translated this term because it can refer both to victory and/or to a popular area in Lima

called La Victoria. 17. Ramirez Ruiz (1971: 51-57). 18. Hora Zero. Materiales para una nueva epoca-Perz 70-Poesia (1970:12). 19. Jara (1981:14). 20. ibid.,p.21.

REFERENCES

Avalos, B. (1978) Educational Change in Latin America: The Case of Peru. University College Cardiff Press, Cardiff.

Hora Zero (1970) Materiales para una nueva epoca-Peru 70-Poesia. Hora Zero, Lima. Hora Zero (1973) Revista de arte y literatura. Hora Zero, Lima. Hora Zero (1977) Nuevas Respuestas. Hora Zero, Lima. Hora Zero (1978) Contra golpe al viento. Hora Zero, Lima. Hora Zero (1979) Despedidos por la Historia!. .. y por Hora Zero. Hora Zero, Lima. Hora Zero (1980) Peri6dico Popular del Movimiento Hora Zero. Hora Zero, Lima. Hora Zero (1981) Antologia Terrestre. Hora Zero, Lima.

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Literature of the Peruvian Educated Underclass 15

Jara, C. (1981) Montacerdos. Lluvia Editores, Lima. Jara, C. (1986) Las huellas del puma. Peisa, Lima. Jara, C. (1989a) Patibulo para un caballo. Mosca Azul, Lima. Jara, C. (1989b) Babd Osaim, cimarron, orapor la santa muerta. Eco del Biho, Lima. Jara, C. (1994) Agnus Dei. Ironyodla Editores, Lima. Jara, C. (1995) Intik'a. Ironyodla Editores, Lima. Matos Mar, J. (1961) Migration and Integration. The 'barriadas' of Lima: An example of Integration into

Urban Life. In Urbanization in Latin America, ed. P.M. Hauser. Columbia University Press, New York. Peru en numeros: 1991 (1991) Cuinto, Lima. 'Palabras urgentes' (1970), in Hora Zero. Hora Zero, Lima. Ramirez Ruiz, J. (1971) Un par de vueltas por la realidad. Ediciones Movimiento Hora Zero, Lima. Rowe, W. and Schelling, V. (1991) Memory and Modernity: Popular Culture in Latin America. Verso,

London. Verastegui, E. (1971) En los extramuros del mundo. Milla Batres, Lima. Verastegui, E. (1988) Leonardo. Instituto Nacional de Cultura, Lima. Verastegui, E. (1989) Angelus Novus, I. Antares, Lima. Verastegui, E. (1990) Angelus Novus, II. Antares/Lluvia, Lima. World Development Report 1992 (1992) The World Bank, Washington DC.