An author of works in French as well as in Spanish, César Moro wrote one of the most brilliant works of contemporary Peruvian poetry. After a 1925 trip to Paris, where his artistic side was shaped by French Surrealism, he became a champion of Spanish American Surrealism. Moro adhered to the tenets of Surrealism throughout his poetic career. He spent most of his adult life in voluntary exile in France and Mexico before returning to live out his last years as a lonely marginal figure in his native city of Lima.

Moro was born Alfredo Quíspez Asín in Lima on 19 August 1903 to Jesús Quíspez Asín and María Mas. Quíspez Asín attended the Jesuit School of the Immaculate in Lima and started painting and writing while still a student. In September of...