Clearance: Yawar Fiesta

Jose Maria Argueda

Translated by Frances Horning Barraclough

Yawar Fiesta is the first novel by the Peruvian author José María Arguedas, published in 1941. It is considered as part of the Latin-American indigenista movement. Set in the village of Puquio (in the Southern Sierra of Peru) it depicts the performance of a bullfight in the Andean style (turupukllay) as part of a celebration called 'yawar punchay'. According to critics, it is the most successful of Arguedas' novels, from a formal point of view. The author's effort is appreciated for offering the most authentic version possible of Andean life, without resorting to convention or the paternalism of previous indigenous literature.