César Abraham Vallejo Mendoza is considered by many critics to be one of the most creative, authentic, unique, and original Latin American poets. He was born on March 16th, 1892, in Santiago de Chuco, an isolated Mestizo mining town in the La Libertad district in north central Peru. The youngest of eleven children by Francisco de Paula Vallejo Benites (1840-1924) and María de los Santos Gurrionero (1850-1918), César grew up in a supposedly devout Catholic home where he was encouraged to join the priesthood. Both his mother and father were children of Spanish Catholic priests who had broken their vows of celibacy by fathering children out of wedlock with Chimu Indian women. Deeply marked by the hypocrisy which reigned in his household, Vallejo eventually rejected religion, describing…
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Citation: Morrow, John Andrew. "César Vallejo". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 10 February 2010 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=5816, accessed 21 November 2024.]
