Ventura García Calderón

 

(Paris, 1886 - 1959) Peruvian essayist, short story writer and poet, one of the most relevant figures of modern Peruvian literature. Together with José de la Riva Agüero, José Gálvez Barrenechea and Víctor Andrés Belaúnde, he was part of the "generation of 900", also called the "Arielista generation". Son of the politician Francisco García Calderón (1834-1905) and brother of the writer and diplomat Francisco, he studied at the University of San Marcos and spent, like him, a good part of his life in Paris; He represented his country in the League of Nations (1932), in Belgium (1935) and in Switzerland (1940).

He wrote some works in the French language, although not with as much insistence as his brother Francisco de Jesús. Ventura García Calderón first worked as a chronicler and it didn't take long for him to dare to do the essay; Incidentally, he cultivated poetry, and, above all, he wrote stories with a masterful hand. Modernist, refined spirit, in love with everything French, García Calderón was like his brother, a Europeanizing Peruvian, although his literary work is more transcendent.

The best collection of his stories is titled The Condor's Revenge, but those in the book Color of Blood, with a prologue by Vicente Blasco Ibáñez, are not far behind; some others are grouped with the titles Painful and naked reality (1914) and Danger of death. The poems of Cantilenas and Semblanzas de América (1920), nor the chronicles of Frívolamente (1907), En la verbena de Madrid and Bajo el clamor de las sirens do not add much to the literary value of the storyteller; But essays such as From romanticism to modernism (1910) and his studies on Peruvian and Uruguayan literature are of particular interest.

Other titles of his works are Parnaso Peruano (1915), Une enquête: Don Quichotte à Paris et dans les tranchées (1916), The first verses of Rubén Darío (1917), The best American stories (1919), Needle of marking and The new Spanish language (1923). Like writers like Enrique Gómez Carrillo, Rufino Blanco Fombona and many others, García Calderón is the refined and cultured American who sows throughout Europe the fertile seed of Latin America and brings to the new continent the fertile warmth of the cultural values of Western Europe.

With affection,

Ruben