Abraham Valdelomar

Pedro Abraham Valdelomar Pinto (April 27, 1888 - November 3, 1919) was a Peruvian narrator, poet, journalist, essayist and dramatist; he is considered the founder of the avant-garde in Peru, although more for his dandy-like public poses and his founding of the journal Colónida than for his own writing, which is lyrically posmodernista rather than aggressively experimental. Like Charles Baudelaire in 19th century Paris, he claimed to have made his country aware for the first time of the relationship between poetry and the market, and to have recognized the need for the writer to turn himself into a celebrity.

Valdelomar was born and grew up in the port city of San Andres Pisco; his childhood in this idyllic coastal setting and within an affectionate household are often the basis for his short stories and poems. After studying at the well-known Guadalupe School in Lima, in 1905 he enrolled to study literature at the National University of San Marcos. However, in 1906 he began contributing caricatures and poems to a number of illustrated magazines and periodicals, such as Aplausos y silbidos, Monos y Monadas, Actualidades, Cinema and Gil Blas, and he soon abandoned university life completely for the world of journalism. In 1910 he started writing chronicles for newspapers, and published his first stories the following year, including two novels, La ciudad de los tísicos and La ciudad muerta, which show the influence of Gabriele d'Annunzio.

Valdelomar was also becoming increasingly interested in politics, and in 1912 he participated in the successful presidential campaign of Guillermo Billinghurst. To reward him for his support, Billinghurst named Valdelomar editor of the newspaper El Peruano in 1912, and the following year sent him on a diplomatic posting to Rome, where he wrote his best-loved and prize-winning story, El Caballero Carmelo. In 1914, after Billinghurst's overthrow, Valdelomar was forced to return to Peru, where he worked as secretary to historian Jose de la Riva-Agüero, under whose influence he wrote La mariscala, the biography of Francisca Zubiaga (1803–1835), wife of the president, Agustín Gamarra.

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