About

The author resides in Lima, Peru and has worked in the international development field in Peru since 2005.  His interests, which are explored in this blog, include economic development issues and Peruvian and Latin American culture. 

 

In writing this blog, he is inspired by the work of Felipe Guamán Poma de Ayala, one of the first chroniclers of the Incas and the Spanish conquest.  According to The Peru Reader, “[o]ne of the most remarkable documents to come out of colonial Peru, Guamán Poma’s 1,200-page letter to King Phillip III of Spain was probably never read and ended up in a Copenhagen archive until its discovery in 1908.  Son of an Ayacucho curaca, or chief, Guamán Poma probably learned Spanish from a half-brother and traveled the country widely.”  His Nueva Crónica y Buen Gobierno offers an encyclopedic view of the Inca state, history, and culture, and denounces the Spanish treatment of the indigenous Peruvians.  In this blog, the author aspires to provide a window onto another culture, as Guamán Poma did so successfully.  Unfortunately, he suspects that as few readers see his blog as saw Guamán Poma’s work before 1908.