Peruvian Literature: The Black Heralds

The Black Heralds
César Vallejo

Few poets have ever expressed the human condition as Vallejo did. His complex poetical universe focuses on suffering and isolation, and is recognizable by a profound attachment to family roots, everyday experiences of pain and death, a strong feeling of solidarity with the poor, and a fervent belief in Marxism. Acclaimed as one of the greatest Latin American poets of the 20th century, the poet born in Santiago de Chuco (north of Peru) wrote five books in verse, but only two were published during his lifetime: The Black Heralds (1919) and Trilce (1922).

The Black Heralds is on of the finest examples of postmodernism. The book explores the treacherous territories of existential anguish, personal suffering and guilt, and has in the first verses of The Black Heralds poem, perhaps the most memorable lines of Peruvian literature:

There are blows in life, so hard... I don't know!

Blows seemingly from God's hate; as if before them

the undertow of all our sufferings

was embedded in our souls . . . I don't know!

Throughout the years, Vallejo's work received the influence of modernism, avant-garde, "indigenismo" (a movement starting at the end of the 19th century that attempted to improve the human rights of indigenous Peruvians and to revaluate the ancient cultures of the Andes), social poetry, and historic events -such as the Spanish civil war. He remains undoubtedly the greatest Peruvian poet of all times, and among the most important poets of the 20th century.

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