Short stories
El caballero Carmelo
Not translated into English
Abraham Valdelomar · 1918
Opening lines
Un día, después del desayuno, cuando el sol empezaba a calentar, vimos aparecer, desde la reja, en el fondo de la plazoleta, un jinete en bellísimo caballo de paso, pañuelo al cuello que agitaba el viento, sanpedrano pellón de sedosa cabellera negra, y henchida alforja, que picaba espuelas en dirección a la casa.
One day, after breakfast, when the sun was beginning to grow warm, we saw, from the railings, at the far end of the little square, a rider appear on a splendid pacing horse, with a scarf at his neck fluttering in the wind, a San Pedro saddle fleece of silky black wool and a bulging saddlebag, spurring towards the house.
Translation by Erostrate
Text quoted from es.wikisource.org
Synopsis
Sixteen stories arranged in seven groups. The Creole tales, including the one that gives the book its title, evoke the narrator's childhood in the port of San Andrés, near Pisco, and a family's pride in its old fighting cock, the Carmelo, which the father decides to pit against the young Ajiseco. There follow two American tales, a cinema tale, five Chinese satires, a humorous tale, an Inca tale and a fantastic tale.
Context
The book appeared in Lima on 12 April 1918, with a preface by Alberto Ulloa Sotomayor, printed in about two thousand copies sold at two soles, in the workshops of the Penitentiary; it was the author's second book, after a biography. The title story, written in 1913, had won the competition of the newspaper La Nación on 27 December of that year. The Chinese satires, published in 1915 and 1916, targeted the dictatorship of Óscar R. Benavides. Luis Alberto Sánchez noted the contrast between the simplicity of the text and the baroque decoration of the cover.
Who it is for
Sixteen short stories in Spanish, of very varied inspiration; the title story, whose hero is a child, can be read on its own.
Prizes and reception
Its title story is considered one of the most accomplished of Peruvian literature, and the one that brought it into modernity.