Biography Essay

For English-speaking audiences, Alfredo Bryce Echenique is in many ways an unknown celebrity among contemporary Latin-American writers. Widely read in Latin America and Europe—especially Spain and France, where his literary career began and where he has lived for many years—Bryce is one of the leading contemporary novelists of Peru along with Mario Vargas Llosa. Translated into some fifteen languages, with English the most recent, Bryce is the author of five novels, three books of short stories, a collection of novellas, and two volumes of journalism. More important, however, Bryce is the creator of a unique style of writing whose main traits are its conversational tone and humor, along with a personal fictional universe that ranges from themes such as the sentimental education of members of the Peruvian bourgeoisie to the experience of exile in Europe. He is considered a leading figure of...