artesano de cusco
 
  Art  


‘Musica criolla’ mixes European rhythms from e.g. the polka or waltz with African beats. Singer Eva Ayllon is legendary in this genre.
Then there’s Peru’s “national dance”, la marinera: a graceful dance that shows a man courting a beautiful, barefooted lady. Every year, a national Marinera festival is held in Trujillo. Don’t expect to hear traditional music in nightclubs, where sensual reggaeton and cumbia are king.
Peru’s classical music is on everyone’s lips, certainly since Juan Diego Flórez was asked to sing in the biggest opera’s in the world. He is said to be the Peruvian Pavarotti.
   
         
 

Literature: One of Peru’s most famous chroniclers, Garcilaso Inca de la Vega, was born in the 17thcentury as the son of a Spanish conquistador and an Inca Princess. His work “Comentarios reales de los Incas” provides a first-hand account of the Inca history and the Spanish conquest.
Two centuries later, Ricardo Palma created a literary genre known as tradiciones - short stories that mix folk tales with real history.
The 20thcentury gave birth to many important authors: among others Manuel Scorza, Sergio Bambaren and Mario Vargas Llosa. Vargas Llosa is one of Peru’s most socially engaged writers. In 1990, he lost the race for the presidency to Fujimori. In 1996, he was honored with the Peace Prize of the German Book Trade. In 2010, he was awarded with The Nobel Prize for Literature.

Music: The classic Andean tune “El Condor Pasa” by Simon & Garfunkel is world famous, but not many people know it was composed by Peruvian musician Daniel Alomia Robles. The music is characteristic for the highlands, where folk melodies are played on the flute or pan flute. Huayno and Saya are two particularly popular genres.
On the coast, the typical cajones were originally invented by African slaves. Their masters had taken away their drums, so they started using fruit cases. Nowadays, these cajones or drum cases cheer up percussion dance parties.