César Vallejo facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
César Vallejo
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Peruvian poet Cesar Vallejo
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| Born | César Abraham Vallejo Mendoza March 16, 1892 Santiago de Chuco, La Libertad, Peru |
| Died | April 15, 1938 (aged 46) Paris, France |
| Occupation | Poet, writer, journalist |
| Nationality | Peruvian |
| Notable works | Los heraldos negros, Trilce |
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César Abraham Vallejo Mendoza (born March 16, 1892 – died April 15, 1938) was a famous poet, writer, and journalist from Peru. Even though he only published two poetry books during his life, he is known as one of the most important poets of the 1900s. His writing style was always new and different. Each of his books was unique and changed how poetry was seen. Many people consider him one of the greatest poets of his time. He was also part of a group of thinkers called the North Group in Trujillo.
A translated collection of his later poems, The Complete Posthumous Poetry of César Vallejo, won an important award in 1979.
Contents
César Vallejo's Life Story
César Vallejo was born in Santiago de Chuco, a small village in the Andes mountains of Peru. His parents were Francisco de Paula Vallejo Benítez and María de los Santos Mendoza Gurrionero. He was the youngest of eleven children. His grandfathers were Spanish priests, and his grandmothers were indigenous Peruvians.
He had to stop his studies for a while because his family did not have enough money. He worked at a sugar plantation called Roma Hacienda. There, he saw how farm workers were treated unfairly. This experience greatly affected his ideas about fairness and his writing.
Vallejo earned a degree in Spanish literature in 1915. In the same year, he met artists and thinkers in Trujillo. He became friends with Antenor Orrego and Victor Raul Haya de la Torre, who later started a political party.
In 1911, Vallejo moved to Lima. He studied at National University of San Marcos. He also worked as a schoolteacher and met many artists and political thinkers. While in Lima, he wrote his first poetry book, Los heraldos negros. This book was published in 1919, even though it says 1918. It was also influenced by the Peruvian writer Manuel González Prada. Vallejo faced many difficulties in the following years, including losing his teaching job.
His mother passed away in 1918. In May 1920, he missed his hometown and returned to Santiago de Chuco. On August 1, a house was robbed and set on fire. Vallejo was wrongly accused of being involved. He hid but was found and arrested. He was put in a jail in Trujillo for 112 days, from November 6, 1920, to February 26, 1921. While in jail, on December 24, 1920, he won second place in a poetry contest in Trujillo. He used a fake name to make sure the contest was fair.
A lawyer named Eduardo González Viaña later showed that the judge and Vallejo's enemies had made up evidence to put him in jail. They invented stories and said people gave testimonies who were not even in Santiago de Chuco. The person who actually committed the crime was shot and killed by police on the way to court. The judge in Vallejo's case also worked for big companies that treated their workers very badly. This showed that Vallejo's arrest was political. It was an attempt to stop young university students who wanted to fight against unfairness.
The legal case against Vallejo was never officially closed. He was released from jail temporarily. Years later, when he was in Europe, he knew he could not go back to Peru. He would have been arrested again.
In 2007, the Judiciary of Peru officially cleared Vallejo's name, saying he was "unfairly accused." In 1922, he published his second poetry book, Trilce. This book is still seen as one of the most groundbreaking poetry collections in Spanish. After publishing two short story collections in 1923, Vallejo moved to Europe. He was afraid of being jailed again. He lived in Europe until he died in Paris in 1938.
During his years in Europe, he lived in great poverty in Paris. He visited the USSR three times and lived in Spain for a couple of years in the early 1930s. In Paris, he sometimes shared his poverty with the famous artist Pablo Picasso. In 1926, he met Henriette Maisse, his first French girlfriend. They lived together until 1928. In 1927, he officially met Georgette Marie Philippart Travers, who later became his wife. This was also the year of his first trip to Russia. Georgette traveled with him to Spain in 1930. In 1930, the Spanish government gave him a small grant for writers. When he returned to Paris, he went to Russia again for a meeting of writers. Back in Paris, Vallejo married Georgette Philippart in 1934. After his death, his wife was involved in some disagreements about how his works were published.
Vallejo often wrote articles for weekly newspapers in Lima. He also sent articles to newspapers and magazines in other parts of Latin America, Spain, Italy, and France. His trips to the USSR led to two books about his experiences, published in the early 1930s. Vallejo also wrote several plays that were never performed or published during his life. One of them was Colacho Hermanos o Los Presidentes de America, which was similar to his novel El Tungsteno. He even wrote a children's book called Paco Yunque. After becoming deeply involved in the Spanish Civil War, Vallejo wrote many poems in the late 1930s. These poems were published after his death in two books: Poemas humanos and España, aparta de mí este cáliz.
César Vallejo's Death in Paris
In early 1938, César Vallejo worked as a language and literature teacher in Paris. But in March, he became very tired and weak. On March 24, he was taken to the hospital for an unknown illness. It was later thought to be a type of malaria that he had as a child, which had returned. On April 7 and 8, he became very sick. He died a week later, on April 15, which was a holy, rainy Friday in Paris. This was not a Thursday, as he seemed to have predicted in one of his poems. His death was written about in a novel by Roberto Bolano. His body was preserved. A French writer named Louis Aragon wrote a speech for his funeral. On April 19, his body was moved to the Mansion of Culture, and later to the Montrouge cemetery.
On April 3, 1970, his wife, Georgette Vallejo, had his remains moved again. He was reburied in the Montparnasse cemetery.
César Vallejo's Main Works
Los Heraldos Negros (1919)
Los Heraldos Negros (The Black Messengers) was finished in 1918 but published in 1919. A famous poet named Robert Bly called this collection "a stunning book." He said it was "the greatest single collection of poems I have ever read." The title might refer to the four horsemen of the apocalypse. The book talks about religion, life, and death.
- A famous poem from the book, "The black heralds":
- There are blows in life, so powerful . . . I don't know!
- Blows as from God's hatred; as if before them,
- the backlash of everything suffered
- were to dam up in the soul . . . I don't know!
- They are few; but they are . . . They open dark furrows
- in the fiercest face and in the strongest side.
- Maybe they could be the horses of barbarous Attilas;
- or the black heralds Death sends us.
- They are the deep abysses of the soul's Christs,
- of some revered faith Destiny blasphemes.
- Those gory blows are the cracklings of a bread
- that burns-up on us at the oven's door.
- And man . . . Poor . . . poor! He turns his eyes,
- as when a slap on the shoulder calls us;
- he turns his crazed eyes, and everything lived
- is dammed up, like a pond of guilt, in his gaze.
- There are blows in life, so powerful . . . I don't know!
Trilce (1922)
Trilce, published in 1922, was ahead of its time. It used new and experimental ways of writing that became popular later. Vallejo's book pushed language to its limits. He invented words, changed sentence structures, and used techniques that were later called "surrealist." He did this even before the Surrealist art movement began. This book made Latin America a key place for new and experimental art. Like James Joyce's Finnegans Wake, Trilce can be hard to understand at first.
España, Aparta de Mí Este Cáliz (1939)
In España, aparta de mí este cáliz (Spain, Take This Chalice from Me), Vallejo wrote about the Spanish Civil War (1936–39). He saw it as a fight between good and evil. He hoped that humanity would win. This was shown by hoping for the survival of the Second Spanish Republic (1931–39). This republic was being attacked by fascist forces led by General Francisco Franco. In 1994, a famous literary critic named Harold Bloom included this book in his list of very important works of Western literature.
Poemas Humanos (1939)
Poemas Humanos (Human Poems), was published by Vallejo's wife after he died. It is a collection of political and social poems. Some of these poems appeared in magazines when Vallejo was alive, but most were published after his death. The poet never gave this collection a specific title. However, his wife found that he had planned a book of "human poems." So, his editors decided to use that title. People said about this last work, "...after a long silence, as if he felt death was near, he wrote the Poemas humanos in just a few months."
Plays Written by César Vallejo
Vallejo wrote five plays. None of them were performed or published during his lifetime.
Mampar was a play about a conflict between a man and his mother-in-law. The actual text of this play is lost. It is believed Vallejo destroyed it.
Lock-Out (1930) was written in French. It was about a worker strike in a factory. Vallejo's own Spanish translation of it is also lost.
Entre las dos orillas corre el río (1930s) had many different versions and titles over time.
Colacho hermanos o Presidentes de América (1934) was a satire. It made fun of Peruvian democracy, showing it as a fake system controlled by big international companies.
La piedra cansada (1937) was a poetic play set in the Inca period. It was influenced by ancient Greek tragedies.
Essays and Non-Fiction by César Vallejo
Vallejo published a book of articles called Russia in 1931. Reflections at the foot of the Kremlin (Madrid, 1931). He also prepared another similar book called Russia before the second five-year plan (finished in 1932, published in 1965).
He also put together two books of essays and thoughts: Against Professional Secrecy (written between 1923 and 1929) and Art and Revolution (written between 1929 and 1931). These books collected various articles, some of which were published in magazines and newspapers during his life. No Spanish publisher wanted to print these books because they contained Marxist and revolutionary ideas. They were finally published in 1973.
Novels and Short Stories by César Vallejo
El tungsteno (1931) is a novel about social issues. It shows how native Peruvian miners and their communities were treated badly by a foreign-owned tungsten mine.
Towards the kingdom of the Sciris (1928) is a historical short story about the Inca theme.
Fabla Salvaje (1924), which means 'Wild Language', is a short novel. It follows a character who lives in the Andes and slowly loses his mind.
The children's book, "Paco Yunque", was rejected in Spain in 1930. Publishers thought it was too violent for children. But after it was published in Peru in the 1960s, it became a required book for elementary school students there.
Selected Works Available in English
- The Complete Poetry of César Vallejo (Translated by Clayton Eshleman)
- The Complete Posthumous Poetry of César Vallejo (Translated by Clayton Eshleman and José Rubia Barcia)
- Malanga Chasing Vallejo: Selected Poems of César Vallejo with New Translations and Notes (Translated by Gerard Malanga)
- Trilce (Translated by Michael Smith, Valentino Gianuzzi)
- The Complete Later Poems 1923–1938 (Translated by Michael Smith, Valentino Gianuzzi)
- The Black Heralds (Translated by Rebecca Seiferle)
- Trilce (Translated by Rebecca Seiferle)
- The Black Heralds (Translated by Barry Fogden)
- The Black Heralds (Translated by Richard Schaaf and Kathleen Ross)
- Trilce (Translated by Dave Smith)
- Autopsy on Surrealism (Translated by Richard Schaaf)
- Cesar Vallejo (Translated by Gordon Brotherstone and Edward Dorn)
- Neruda and Vallejo: Selected Poems (Translated by Robert Bly and James Wright)
- I'm going to speak of hope (Translated by Peter Boyle)
- Cesar Vallejo: An Anthology of His Poetry (Introduction by James Higgins)
- Selected Poems of Cesar Vallejo (Translated by H. R. Hays)
- Poemas Humanos, Human Poems, by César Vallejo, a bilingual edition translated by Clayton Eshleman.
- The Mayakovsky Case (Translated by Richard Schaaf)
- Tungsten (Translated by Robert Mezey)
- Songs of Home (Translated by Kathleen Ross and Richard Schaaf)
- Spain Take This Cup from Me (Translated by Mary Sarko)
- Spain, Let This Cup Pass from Me (Translated by Álvaro Cardona-Hine)
- Trilce (Selections from the 1922 Edition) (Translated by Prospero Saiz)
- Trilce (Homophonic translator: James Wagner)
Images for kids
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Monument to César Vallejo in the Jesus Maria District of Lima, Peru.
See also
In Spanish: César Vallejo para niños
- Peruvian literature
- List of Peruvian writers
- Latin American Literature
