Alfredo Bryce Echenique

Alfredo Bryce Echenique (born February 19, 1939, Lima, Peru) is a Peruvian novelist, short-story writer, and essayist whose fictional works are filled with wry humour that blends intimacy and pathos.

Bryce Echenique was born into a wealthy family. His narratives often portray Lima’s upper class using colloquial speech and a sophisticated narrative technique that intermingles the scholarly and the popular. His first novel, Un mundo para Julius (1970; A World for Julius), was acclaimed by critics and the public alike and won the Premio Nacional de Literatura in 1972. Among his best-known novels were Tantas veces Pedro (1977; “So Many Times Pedro”), La vida exagerada de Martín Romaña (1981; “The Exaggerated Life of Martín Romaña”), El hombre que hablaba de Octavia de Cádiz (1984; “The Man Who Talked About Octavia de Cádiz”), and La amigdalitis de Tarzán (1999; Tarzan’s Tonsilitis). El huerto de mi amada (2002; “The Garden of My Beloved”) won Spain’s Premio de Planeta.

Bryce Echenique also published several collections of short stories, including Huerto cerrado (1968; Eng. trans. Huerto cerrado; “Closed Orchard”), La felicidad ja, ja (1974; “Happiness Ha, Ha”), Magdalena peruana y otros cuentos (1986; “Peruvian Magdalena and Other Stories”), and La esposa del Rey de las Curvas (2008; “The Wife of the King of the Curves”). Essay collections included Crónicas perdidas (2001; “Lost Chronicles”) and Penúltimos escritos: Retazos de vida y literatura (2009; “Penultimate Writings: Pieces of Life and Literature”). Both volumes of his autobiography, Permiso para vivir (1993; “Permission to Live”) and Permiso para sentir (2005; “Permission to Feel”), were subtitled Antimemorias (“Antimemories”). In his later years accusations of plagiarism shadowed him.