Carlos Thorne Boas
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Carlos Thorne (b. 1923) is Peruvian novelist, writer and lawyer. He is credited as one of the most original and innovative Peruvian writers of the second half of the XXth century due to his unique blend of avant garde flashback techniques, following Malcolm Lowry and James Joyce, and his care for historical detail to the point of reproducing the Spanish of the Conquistadores.
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[edit] Life and Works
Thorne was born in Lima, where he studied law and philosophy. After a succesful career as lawyer and some excursions into politics, he decided to devote his life to literature and academic research, writing books and becoming professor in law at the Universidad Nacional Mayor de San Marcos de Lima (UNMSM), the oldest in the Americas. He has been visiting lecturer both in literature and law in the universities of Columbia, Salamanca, Uppsala, King's College London, Liverpool and Complutense.
Perhaps his best known contribution to Latin American novel is his Peruvian trilogy. Papá Lucas (1987), a novel centered on the war against Chile in the 1880's. Next, El señor de Lunahaná (1994), which is devoted to the wars of independence from the 1810's and 1820's. Finally, El encomendero de la adarga de plata (1999), is a powerful evocation of the Spanish conquest, written in 17th century Spanish and set during the Inca siege of Cuzco in 1536. In his books the reader gets absorbed from the first pages in a world of wonder, passion and violence of a strange beauty and poetry. As such, he is regarded by his peers and by the critics on a par to Alejo Carpentier and Gabriel García Marquez and thus as one of the main living exponents of the "real maravilloso" (Magic realism) Latin American novel tradition and of the Latin American historical novel. Viva la república (1981), his first novel, is a highly achieved satire of the Peruvian military dictators of the 1970's that he passionately opposed.
[edit] Novels
Viva la república (1981).
Papá Lucas (1987).
El señor de Lunahaná (1994).
El encomendero de la adarga de plata (1999).
[edit] Other Writings
Los días fáciles (1959, short stories).
Mañana Mao (1974, short stories).
Páginas de extramuros (1993, essays).
El hilo de la razón (1995, essays).
Los oficios de la lengua (2001, essays).
En las fauces de las fieras (2004, short stories)
[edit] References
- Seymour Menton, Caminata por la narrativa latinoamericana. 2004, Fondo de Cultura Económica, México.
