Juan Wallparrimachi
Juan Wallparrimachi Mayta (Potosí, 1793–1814) was a Bolivian poet and pro-independence guerrilla fighter who wrote in Quechua. He worked in his people's tradition while also producing décima in indigenous language. His work fell into relative neglect.[1]
Biography
Wallparrimachi was born in the village of Macha, in the Chayanta Province of the Potosí Department in Bolivia.[2] The grandson of a Portuguese Jew, and the son of an indigenous mother from Cuzco, Peru, and a Spanish father, who both died shortly after his birth.[3][4] He was raised by indigenous people and later recruited by the guerrillas Manuel Ascensio Padilla and Juana Azurduy de Padilla, with whom he fought against the Spanish government.[5] As he only knew the surname of his maternal grandfather, he adopted it.[6]
He died at the age of 20, in an 1814 battle in the Bolivian War of Independence, under the command of his leader and protector, Juana Azurduy.[7] He has passed into immortality as a "poet-soldier" in Bolivian literature.
References
- The Cambridge History of Latin American Literature, Volume 1 edited by Roberto Gonzalez Echevarría and Enrique Pupo-Walker, pg 381
- Bolivian studies. Institute of Bolivian Studies. 1994. p. 37.
- "Conoce a Juan Wallparrimachi, declarado Héroe Nacional de Bolivia". Urgentebo (in Spanish). Retrieved 2021-02-27.
- Santiago (in Spanish). La Universidad. 1973.
- Guzmán, Augusto (1969). Breve historia de Bolivia (in Spanish). Editorial "Los Amigos del Libro". p. 117.
- Consejo Nacional de Mujeres de Bolivia (in Spanish). El Consejo. 2000. p. 227.
- Romero, Adolfo Cáceres (1995). Nueva historia de la literatura boliviana: Literatura de la Independencia y del siglo XIX (in Spanish). Los Amigos del Libro. p. 43.