Ricardo Palma

Topics: Afro-Peruvians, Peruvian writers

Ricardo Palma (1833 - 1919) was a Peruvian author, scholar, and librarian. His magnum opus is the Tradiciones Peruanas .

Young Ricardo Palma became a naval officer, a journalist, and a politician before gaining a reputation as a historian with his book on the Spanish Inquisition operating in the viceroyalty of Peru . He served as director of the National Library of Peru for many years until his death in 1919. Palma successfully took on the task of rebuilding the National Library after it was ransacked by the occupation forces of the Chilean army in 1881 following the battle of Lima during the War of the Pacific. Palma was able to bring the National Library back from the ashes to its previous stature and allowed it to be again recognized as one of the top libraries in South America. It was through his personal friendship with the then Chilean president Domingo Santa Maria, that Palma was able to recover an estimated 10,000 books from Chilean hands, as well as many others works which were recovered through his own personal efforts.

Palma's literary reputation rests upon his creation and development of the literary genre known as tradiciones - short stories that mix history and fiction, written both to amuse and educate, according to the author's declared intention. It was by creatively using poetic license and by deviating from "pure" history that Palma gained his large South American readership. His Tradiciones Peruanas span several centuries, but with an emphasis on earlier colonial and republican times in Peru. The Tradiciones were published from 1872 to 1910 in a series of volumes - some of which are freely available on the internet (see the bottom of this page for links) . There are also many different editions and selections of the Tradiciones commercially available. The "Tradiciones Peruanas" do not meet formal historical standards of accuracy or reliability sufficiently to be considered "history," but Palma never intended them to be read as "pure" history. Since they are primarily historical fiction they should be understood and enjoyed as such. The author's opinion, the opinions of the other primary sources or oral narrators of the stories he collects and transmits, as well as hearsay, play a large role in his stories. Yet Palma's historical fiction even to this day entertains and amuses readers of all ages. Ricardo Palma therefore made a considerable contribution to Peruvian and South American literature. Some critics have classified the Tradiciones as part of nineteenth-century Romanticism along the lines of Jose Maria Eguren and similar writers. Most, however, would agree that the universality of the "Tradiciones Peruanas" and their enduring success may derive from the fact that they are a window into the idiosyncrasies of the national soul, culture and history of the Peruvian people.