Background

Ethnicity: Ricardo Palma's mother had mixed ancestry with African roots.

Ricardo Palma was born on February 7, 1833 in Lima, Provincia de Lima, Lima, Peru. He was a son of Pedro Palma and Dominga Soriano (some sources say Guillerma Carrillo). His family had migrated to Lima before his birth. His parents separated while he was a young child.

Education

First educated at a Jesuit school, Ricardo Palma went on to study at the University of San Carlos, where he remained until joining the navy at the age of twenty.

Career

Ricardo Palma published his first poem in the newspaper "El comercio" when he was fifteen years old, and his first play "La hermana del verdugo", was performed in 1851. At the age of twenty, Palma entered the navy, and it was during a prolonged stay on the Chincha Islands that he discovered the classics of Spanish literature, most importantly the works of Miguel de Cervantes and Francisco de Quevedo. By 1860 Palma had left military service and was writing liberal invectives against the policies of Peru’s president Ramon Castilla. In November of that year, he indirectly participated in an unsuccessful assassination attempt on the president and, threatened with imprisonment, fled to Chile. In 1863, after a newly elected president declared amnesty for all political exiles, Palma returned to Peru and was appointed to the Brazilian consulate.

Palma eventually ascended to the Peruvian senate, where he served from 1868 to 1872 under the presidency of Jose Balta. Following the election of 1872, in which Balta lost the presidency to Manuel Pardo, four of Balta’s generals temporarily seized power and murdered Balta, an action that destroyed Palma’s faith in the efficacy of politics and prompted his interest in writing tradiciones, through which he could, by his own acknowledgement, "live in centuries now departed."

Between 1872 and 1877 Palma compiled four volumes of tradiciones and one volume of poetry. After Palma left politics in 1872, his liberal principles found expression in the social and political satire of the Tradiciones peruanas. His most frequent objects of ridicule were Roman catholic priests, monks, and mystics; lawyers, judges, and officials of the court; and political figures. Opposed to hypocrisy, injustice, corruption, and suppression of freedom, he satirized the people and institutions that he considered most guilty of such offenses. His wit, although thought- provoking, was nonetheless gentle, in keeping with the lighthearted atmosphere characteristic of his conception of the tradición.

In 1879 his work was halted by the War of the Pacific between Peru and Chile, during which the Peruvian National Library was destroyed. At the end of the war in 1883 Palma began a thirty-year career as director of the National Library, restoring much of the former collection and adding an additional thirty-five thousand volumes. Palma continued to write tradiciones and various historical articles until 1909, when his doctor advised him to discontinue writing because of the strain it placed on his health. Although the exact cause and circumstances of Ricardo Palma's death are unknown, he died on October 6, 1919 in Miraflores, Lima, Peru.

Achievements

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  Ricardo Palma is best known for his collected legends of colonial Peru. He created the genre, which is called "Tradición", short prose sketch in which a historical incident is related in an imaginative and literary style. On May 5 1887, he founded the Peruvian Academy of Language, an association of experts on the use of the Spanish language.
  
  Today Ricardo Palma's letters to an Argentinian friend are kept at the National Library of Peru. In Colombia, the statue was installed in his honor.

Works

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  • Armonias: libro de un desterrado

    (Spanish Edition)

    1865
  • Lira Americana: Coleccion de poesias delos mejores poetas del Peru, Chile y Bolivia

    (Spanish Edition)

    1865
  • Verbos y gerundios

    (Spanish Edition)

    1877
  • Poesías completas

    (Catalan Edition)

    1911
  • Filigranas

    (Spanish Edition)

    1892
  • Tradiciones peruanas

    (Spanish Edition)

    1893
  • Mis últimas tradiciones peruanas, y Cachivachería

    (Spanish Edition)

    1906
  • Anales De La Inquisicion De Lima

    (Spanish Edition)

    1863
  • El Demonio de los Andes: Tradiciones Históricas Sobre el Conquistador Francisco de Carbajal

    (Spanish Edition)

    1883
  • Neologismos Y Americanismos

    (Spanish Edition)

    1896
  • Recuerdos de España Precedidos de la Bohemia de MI Tiempo

    (Spanish Edition)

    1897
  • Papeletas Lexicográficas: Dos mil setecientas voces que hacen falta en el diccionario

    (Spanish Edition)

    1903
  • The Knights of the Cape and Thirty-Seven Other Selections from the "Tradiciones peruanas" of Ricardo Palma

    (English Edition)

    1945
  • Rodil

    (A play. Spanish Edition)

    1852

Politics

Ricardo Palma began dabbling in politics at a young age. He was a member of the liberal camp.

Membership

Ricardo Palma was a second president of the Peruvian Academy of Language.

Connections

With Clemencia Ramínez in 1872, Ricardo Palma had his son Clement Palma. In 1876, he married Cristina Roman y Olivier. They had seven children: Felix Vital, Angelica, Ricardo, Peregrina Augusta, Cristina, Cristian and Renee Cristina.

Father:

Pedro Palma

Mother:

Dominga Soriano

Spouse:

Cristina Roman y Olivier

Daughter:

Angelica Palma

Daughter:

Renee Cristina Palma

Daughter:

Peregrina Augusta Palma

Daughter:

Cristina Palma

Son:

Cristian Palma

Son:

Ricardo Palma

Son:

Felix Vital Palma

Son:

Clemente Palma

Clemente Palma was influenced by Edgar Allan Poe. He was a successful writer of imaginative tales and wrote many horror stories.

References

• Contemporary Authors
  1998