Deep Rivers
SynopsisPlot
Ernesto, the narrator of Deep Rivers, is a child with origins in two worlds. The son of a wandering country lawyer, he is brought up by Indian servants until he enters a Catholic boarding school at age 14. In this urban Spanish environment, he is a misfit and a loner. The conflict between the Indian and the Spanish cultures is acted out within him as it was in the life of Arguedas. For the boy Ernesto, salvation is his world of dreams and memories.
Story
About this book
Deep Rivers is an autobiographical novel by the Peruvian writer José María Arguedas, published in Spanish as Los ríos profundos. It follows Ernesto, the son of a travelling country lawyer, who is raised by Indian servants and then sent to a Catholic boarding school at the age of fourteen. The novel is set in Peru, where highland Quechua-speaking communities and Spanish-speaking towns sit close together.
In that urban, Spanish-speaking setting Ernesto is a misfit and a loner. He carries the language and memories of his early years, while the school and the town run on different rules. The conflict between Indian and Spanish cultures is worked out inside the boy, as it was in the life of Arguedas himself. Social hierarchy and violence shape the world around him.
Arguedas grew up in the Andean highlands and knew Quechua closely. His handling of language was unusual: he published his poetry in Quechua, and for his novels he built a form of Spanish that follows native syntax while using Spanish vocabulary. For Ernesto, a world of dreams and memories becomes the place where he finds relief.
