Spanish Language In Cusquenhos

We young folks in Cusco were very much concerned with poetry as much as Bolano’s visceral realists did in Mexico City but unlike them, Octavio Paz was not our enemy. We loved discussing the labyrinth of solitude but It was the poetry of Cesar Vallejo, Arguedas, Garcilazo that matter to us. It reflected our Andean traits. Cusquenhos are different from coastal Peruvians. We are because of our cultural traits. We are visual, silent, introverts, stoic and very much good listeners and enjoy jokes spoken in the Quechua language. Cultural traits inherited and transformed out of the clash between the Inca and the Spanish culture. The Nobel Prize winner Vargas llosa is correct indicating that our Spanish language in Cusco is old, archaic and more likely spoken as we were in colonial times. Correct. …show more content…
It was there where we found a kind of library as I do now at the McGill library. All we had to do was pay a few cents to the owner of the books and periodicals and sit there on the concrete floor. See then the world presented to us through books. It made all sense. We would look at the book, magazine and newspaper covers, Ciro Alegria’s “el mundo es ancho y ajeno was next to the Idiot by Dostoyevsky. Tolstoy was there next to Mark Twain Huckbery Finn. The playboy centerfolds were also looking at us in the endless pile of books that were not catalogued in any order but chaos and many written in languages we didn’t know but we didn’t care. It was exciting for us just to touch them and of course find a way to put them quietly inside the pockets of our big jackets. We had ways to distract the owner of the books who was the only one who know (understood the order within the chaos of his books) exactly where was located what we were looking for. “how is two shirts and a sweater for the Idiot” I would ask. “Deal” the street bibliotecaire would respond after inspecting the