Observations on the Contemporary Peruvian Short Story

Abstract

During the course of the twentieth century, the short story has become the most cultivated and significant form of narrative fiction in Peru. Many of Peru's most distinguished men of letters, Enrique López Albújar, Ventura García Calderón and José María Arguedas, to name just a few, have come into prominence through their production in the genre. In testimony to its continued growing importance, one need only look to the period between 1950 and the present in which practically all the emerging young writers have used the short narrative as a vehicle for their literary efforts.