Sear

Alonso Cueto

Alonso Cueto Caballero (born 1954 in

Lima, Peru) is a Peruvian author,
university professor and newspaper
columnist. His writing career has
spanned nearly four decades, during
which he has produced dozens of works
of fiction, articles and essays. He has
won numerous accolades for his work,
and several of his novels have been
adapted for film.

Alonso Cueto

Cueto in FILSA 2017

Born April 30, 1954
Lima, Peru
Occupation Writer, journalist,
professor

Born: Alonso Cueto Caballero

April 30, 1954 (age 64)

Lima, Peru

Occupation: Writer, professor

Nationality: Peruvian

Genre: Novel, short story, essay, drama

Notable works: La hora azul, El susurro de

la mujer ballena, La viajera del viento,
Grandes miradas

Biography
The son of Peruvian philosopher and
educator Carlos Cueto Fernandini and
children's literature promoter Lilly
Caballero Elbers, Alonso Cueto spent his
early childhood in France and the United
States before returning to Peru at the age
of seven.

Cueto earned a bachelor's degree in

literature from the Catholic University of
Peru and a Ph.D. in literature from the
University of Texas at Austin, where he
completed his first collection of short
stories, La batalla del pasado.

He returned to Peru in 1984 and

published several books over the
succeeding decades, including the
award-winning Tigre Blanco. At the same
time, he worked as a columnist for
several publications and served as
director of El Comercio’s El Dominical
Sunday supplement.

In 2003, he left El Comercio to pursue

writing and teaching full-time.

Writing career
In 2005, he published his best-known
novel, La hora azul, in which a wealthy
lawyer searches for the woman his
military father had taken prisoner during
the armed struggle between the Peruvian
government and Shining Path rebels.
Mario Vargas Llosa called the book,
which won the prestigious Herralde Prize
in 2005, “a magnificent novel that lucidly
and imaginatively describes the
aftermath of 10 years of civil war and
terrorism”, and J.M. Coetzee describes it
as "a dark and disturbing novel". La hora
azul was followed by two spiritual
successors, La pasajera and La viajera del
viento, to form Redención, the acclaimed
trilogy on the years of terrorism and
political strife in Peru.

His novels have been translated into

fifteen languages, with Frank Wynne's
English-language translation of La hora
azul, The Blue Hour, winning the Valle
Inclán prize for translation.

Besides novels, Cueto has written several

short story collections and essays as
well as a children's book and a play. He
also teaches in the Department of
Literature at the Catholic University of
Peru and writes a weekly column for El
Comercio newspaper.

Several of Cueto's works have been

adapted for film, including La pasajera,
which was the inspiration for Magallanes
by director Salvador del Solar. Grandes
miradas was adapted into Mariposa
negra, a 2006 film by the awarded
director Francisco Lombardi, and La hora
azul served as the basis for the 2014
movie of the same name by Evelyne
Pegot-Ogier.

Awards and Honors

Wiracocha Prize, 1985, for the novel El
tigre blanco
Anna Seghers Prize (Germany), 2000,
for his body of work
Guggenheim Fellowship, 2002-2003
Herralde Prize, 2005, for The Blue Hour
(La hora azul)
Best Spanish-language novel, Editorial
House of the Republic of China for the
best novel written in 2004-2005, for
The Blue Hour (La hora azul)
Second place in the Planeta-Casa de
América Prize, 2007, for the novel El
susurro de la mujer ballena
Elected as a member of the Peruvian
Academy of Language, 2009
Tribute at the International Book Fair of
Lima, 2010
Recognition for his contribution to
culture from the Ministry of Culture of
Peru, 2017
 Premio de Narrativa Alcobendas Juan
Goytisolo 2019 for Palabras de otro
lado, 2019.

Works
●       La batalla del pasado, short-story
collection, Alfaguara, Madrid, 1983,
Editorial Apoyo, 1996, Alfagura Juvenil
Perú, 1998

●       El tigre blanco, novel, Editorial

Planeta Peru, 1985; 2007

●       Los vestidos de una dama, short-

story collection, Editorial Peisa, Lima,
1987; 1998
●       Deseo de noche, novel, Editorial
Apoyo, 1993, Editorial Pre-Textos, 2003

●       Amores de invierno, Apoyo, 1994,

Planeta, 2006

●       El vuelo de la ceniza, novel, Apoyo,

1995, Seix Barral, 2007

●       Cinco para las nueve y otros

cuentos, short story collection for young
people, Alfaguara, Lima, 1996; Barcelona
Digital Editions, 2014

●       Pálido cielo, short-story collection,

Peisa, 1998, Norma, 2010
●       Demonio del mediodía, novel, Peisa,
1999

●       El otro amor de Diana Abril, three

novellas: El otro amor de Diana Abril; Dalia
y los perros; and Lágrimas artificiales,
Peisa, 2002

●       Encuentro casual, play, Peisa, 2002

●       Grandes miradas, novel, Peisa,
2003, Editorial Anagrama, 2005, Penguin
Random House, 2017

●       Mario Vargas Llosa. La vida en

movimiento, interview and essay, Fondo
Editorial de la UPC, 2003
●       Valses, rajes y cortejos, collection
of newspaper columns, Peisa, 2005

●       La hora azul, Peisa / Anagrama,

2005, Planeta, 2013, Penguin Random
House, 2018

●       El susurro de la mujer ballena,

novel, Planeta, 2007, Penguin Random
House, 2018

●       Sueños reales, essays, Seix Barral,

2008

●       Rosa Mercedes Ayarza, biography,

Edelnor, Lima, 2009
●       Juan Carlos Onetti. El soñador en la
penumbra, essay, Fondo de Cultura
Económica, 2009

●       La venganza del silencio, novel,

Planeta, 2010

●       El árbol del tesoro, children's book,

illustrations by Isabelle Decenciere,
Planeta, 2011

●       Cuerpos secretos, novel, Planeta,

2012

●       La piel de un escritor. Contar,

escribir y leer historias, essays, Fondo
Cultura Económica, 2014
●       Lágrimas artificiales / Dalia y los
perros, two novellas, Peisa, 2014

●       La pasajera, novela breve, Seix

Barral, 2015

●       Duelo en la Ciudad de Plata,

historical novel, Seix Barral, 2015

●       La viajera del viento, novela,

Planeta, 2016

●       La segunda amante del rey, novel,

Penguin Random House, 2017

●       La passagère du vent, novela,

Gallimard, 2018
●      Testamento de sangre, novela,
Penguin Random House, 2018

●      La Perricholi. Reina de Lima, novela,

Penguin Random House, 2019

●      Palabras de otro lado, novela,

Galaxia Gutemberg, 2019

Film Adaptations
His novel Grandes Miradas was adapted
into a movie (Mariposa Negra) by
Francisco Lombardi in 2006. Cueto's
novel La Hora Azul/The Blue Hour which
won the Herralde Prize in 2006.[1] was
published in English in 2012 (translated
by Frank Wynne) and was shortlisted for
the 2013 Oxford-Weidenfeld Translation
Prize and won the Valle Inclán Prize in
2013.

Reviews
“Alonso Cueto despre scriitori şi
cititori“. Diario: Ziarul de Duminica.
Autor: Rodica Grigore
The Blue Hour by Alonso Cueto. Autor:
César Ferreira. University of Wisconsin-
Milwaukee. World Literature Today.
The Blue Hour by Alonso Cueto and
Frank Wynne.
Terror, bribery and intrigue: the bloody
past fuelling Lima's literary
renaissance. The Guardian.
The Blue Hour. Random House Books.
Alonso Cueto, The Blue Hour:
Storytelling and History. Autor: Rodica
Grigore.
Ein Buch pro Frühjahr muss reichen.
Frankfurter Allgemeine.
Leuchtender Pfad ans Ende der Nacht.
Frankfurter Allgemeine.
Past war and cruelty, Peru's writers
bloom. The New York Times. Autor:
 Simon Romero.

References
1. "Out of the darkness, a literary
renaissance in Peru" . The New York
Times. 1 November 2006. Retrieved
29 October 2010.

External links
An Archangel Named Gabriel , short
story (full text), at The Short Story
Project
Alonso Cueto recorded at the Library
of Congress for the Hispanic Division’s
audio literary archive on March 15,
2015
Retrieved from
"https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?
title=Alonso_Cueto&oldid=930165922"

Last edited 13 days ago by an anonymous user

Content is available under CC BY-SA 3.0 unless

otherwise noted.