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Peru

Author · Peru

Ricardo Palma

Died in 1919

Ricardo Palma was born in Lima on 7 February 1833, into a modest family, and began publishing verse around 1848. Having joined the navy in 1853, he survived the wreck of the Rímac in March 1855. In 1860 he took part in the failed assault on President Castilla's house and lived in exile in Chile until the amnesty of 1863. Secretary to President Balta, he saw his house in Miraflores burned down by the occupying troops in 1881. Appointed in 1883 to head the destroyed National Library, he rebuilt it through donations, whence his nickname of the beggar librarian. He died in Miraflores on 6 October 1919.

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