Background

Cesar Vallejo was born on March 16, 1892 in Santiago De Chuco, La Libertad, Peru, in the family of Francisco de Paula Vallejo Benítez and María de los Santos Mendoza Gurrionero. He was the youngest of eleven children. His grandfathers were both Spanish priests, and his grandmothers were both indigenous Peruvians.

Education

In 1911 Vallejo moved to Lima, where he studied at National University of San Marcos. Vallejo received a Bachelor of Arts in Spanish literature in 1915.

Career

Cesar was a poet and freelance writer. During his young years he worked in his father’s notary office, in mine offices, as a tutor, and in an estate accounts office. In 1913 - 1917 he worked as a teacher in Centro Escolar du Verones and Colegio Nacional de San Juan. Then he lived in Lima, Peru, and was a teacher in Colegio Barros in 1918-1919, and in another school in 1920.

Then he was involved in political riot in Santiago de Chuco, Peru, and imprisoned in 1920-1921. After that he was a teacher in Colegio Guadalupe.

After 1923 he lived in Europe, and was a secretary in Iberoamerican press agency. He also worked as a journalist and helped publish Nuestra Espana in Spain during the Spanish Civil War.

Achievements

• He is considered one of the great poetic innovators of the 20th century in any language.

Works

More photos

• book

  • The Complete Poetry: A Bilingual Edition 2009
  • Selected Poems 2006
  • Selected Writings of César Vallejo (Wesleyan Poetry Series) 2015
  • Los heraldos negros (Spanish Edition) 2010
  • Spain, Take This Chalice from Me and Other Poems: Parallel Text edition (Penguin Classics) (Spanish Edition) 2008
  • Trilce (Coleccion Letras Hispanicas) (Spanish Edition) 2006
  • The Complete Posthumous Poetry 1980
  • Trilce (Spanish Edition) 2016
  • The Black Heralds & Other Early Poems 2007
  • Aphorisms (Green Integer 52) 2002

Membership

• North Group

Personality

Quotes from others about the person

• He saw the world in piercing flashes of outrage and anguish, terror and pity. ... A passionate, tragic poet, he mourned our loss of moral innocence and despaired of the injustice that moves the world.

Connections

In 1926 he met his first French mistress, Henriette Maisse, with whom he lived until a breakup in October 1928. In 1927 he had formally met Georgette Marie Philippart Travers, whom he had seen when she was 17 and lived in his neighborhood. This was also the year of his first trip to Russia. They eventually became lovers, much to the dismay of her mother. Vallejo married Georgette Philippart in 1934.

Father:

Francisco de Paula Vallejo Benítez

Mother:

María de los Santos Mendoza Gurrionero

Spouse:

Georgette Phillipart