Reading Jose Maria Arguedas' letters. Building communication bridges in mid-twentieth century Peruvian society.

The life and production of the Peruvian writer Jose Maria Arguedas (1911-1969) show his capacity to build communication bridges among different cultural and social groups. It was likely the confluence of historical, sociological, and emotional factors that intersected Arguedas’ life that gave him the capacity to communicate with different cultural groups within Peruvian society. Arguedas’ capacity to build intercultural bridges is shown throughout all of his communication practices (literary and non-literary). His literary production (stories, novels, and poems) has been thoroughly studied; nevertheless, other communication practices such as his letters have not. The goal of this dissertation is to trace how Arguedas is constructing his voice through his letters and in doing so, how he is producing experimental strategies to present himself as a communication bridge so as to invite Peruvian society to be able to reach a better understanding. This dissertation is divided in two parts. The first part focuses on how Arguedas constructs an image of himself through his letters. The second part of the dissertation focuses on the analysis of how Arguedas describes his world. Affective language present in his letters is a key element to interweave the different sections, while attempting to find the different communicational strategies that allowed Arguedas to construct his voice. By so constructing his persona, he reveals his communication strategy of presenting himself as a pliable verbal platform between cultures of the Peruvian Andes and the Westernized coast. Nowadays this exceptional bridging capacity is better understood than ever before because he foretold what was going to happen in the future.