Peruvian literature

The term Peruvian literature not only refers to literature produced in the independent Republic of Peru, but also to literature produced in the Viceroyalty of Peru during the country's colonial period, and to oral artistic forms created by diverse ethnic groups that existed in the area during the prehispanic period, such as the Quechua, the Aymara and the Chanka indigenous groups.

The artistic production of the pre-Hispanic period, especially art produced under the Incan Empire, is largely unknown. Literature produced in the central-Andean region of modern-day Ecuador, Perú, Bolivia and Chile, is thought to have been transmitted orally alone, though the quipu of the Inka and earlier Andean civilizations increasingly casts this into doubt. It consisted of two main poetic forms: harawis (from the Quechua language)--- a form of lyrical poetry---and hayllis--- a form of epic poetry. Both forms described the daily life and rituals of the time, and were recited by a poet known as the harawec.

Orally transmitted folktales expressed the cosmology of the Andean world, and included creation and destruction myths. Many of these stories have survived until the present, thanks in no small part to the efforts of early chroniclers such as Inca Garcilaso, who rediscovered Quechua poetry, and Guamán Poma de Ayala, who preserved mythology. Their inclusion in the "official canon" was a slow process, as they were not viewed with seriousness. For instance, Jose de la Riva Agüero, in his 1905 thesis Character of the Literature of Independent Peru considered the Pre-Hispanic literary tradition "insufficient" and unimportant in the formation of any new literary tradition. It was resurrected from obscurity in the 20th century, by a number of literary scholars and anthropologists who compiled and rescued Pre-Hispanic myths and legends. Among them are:

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