Background
Watanabe was born in Laredo, a large sugar cane farm in northern Peru. His father was a Japanese immigrant and his mother was a Peruvian of Andean origin.
Watanabe was born in Laredo, a large sugar cane farm in northern Peru. His father was a Japanese immigrant and his mother was a Peruvian of Andean origin.
In a very intimate way, Watanabe fused his two deep cultural backgrounds in brief but intense poetic work. In 1970, Watanabe shared, with Antonio Cillóniz, first prize in the "Young Poet" contest organized by "Cuadernos trimestrales de Poesía." This award has also been bestowed upon poets such as Javier Heraud and Cesar Calvo. After a silence of almost two decades, he resumed publishing in 1989 with El huso de la palabra.
After that came Historia Natural (1994), Cosas del Cuerpo (1999) and Habitó entre Nosotros (2002).
"He is one of the few living Peruvian authors that can be qualified as essential" wrote Esperanza Lopez Parada in Babelia, the literary supplement of El Paíson Watanabe was also involved in the film industry as a screenwriter, production designer and art director
He died in April 2007.