B003EEN38U EBOK The Complete Poetry A Bilingual Edition nodrm
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On April 14 King Alfonso XIII abdicates, and the Spanish Republicans come to power;
Vallejo is unimpressed and remarks to Georgette that a bloodless revolution is not a true revolution.37
Rusia en 1931 is published in July by Ediciones Ulises in Madrid. Reprinted twice in four months, the book becomes something of a best seller. Jose Macedo remembers how it was advertised everywhere in Madrid, on the Puerta del Sol, the Calle de Alcala, and along the Gran Via (quoted in More, 86). Vallejo does not make much money from the book, however, since the publishers refuse to pay him royalties for the second and third printings (Domingo Cordoba, 145)•
On October 27-30 Vallejo attends the International Writers' Congress in Moscow as an invited delegate.
In November he begins writing a second book on the Soviet Union, "Rusia ante el Segundo Plan Quinquenal," which is rejected by various publishers. It will be published years after his death by La Editora Grafica in Lima (1965)-
1932 On January 25 Georgette goes to Paris to sell her apartment. She claims to have received two letters from Vallejo, who is still in Madrid, one of which is dated January 29, 1932, describing his work on El arte y la revolucion: "Estoy corrigiendo El arte y la revolucion. Me parece que es un libro muy, muy Bien. Me gusta mucho."38 This letter may be fictitious, since it is not reproduced and is used as the main evidence with which to rebut Juan Larrea's view that Vallejo was losing interest in politics; a consultation of the manuscripts of El arte y la revolucion and Contra el secrete profesional, now held in the Biblioteca Nacional, suggests that the titles for the collections were coined by Georgette rather than Vallejo.39
Also in January, Vallejo goes with Federico Garcia Lorca to see Camila Quiroga to discuss the possibility of having one of Vallejo's plays performed in Madrid, but has no success 40
On February 12 Vallejo crosses the border illegally and joins Georgette in Paris. He is told that he will be allowed to remain in France if he desists from political activity and reports to the prefecture monthly.
On August 12 and 20, Vallejo reports to the prefecture in Paris.
1933 Vallejo publishes "Un grand reportage politique: Que se passe-t-il en Amerique du Sud an pays des Incas?" in the magazine Germinal (June 3, 10, 17, 24)-
On August 20 he reports for the third and final time to the prefecture, after which his residency in France is legalized, despite the fact that he does not appear to have fulfilled all requirements.
1934 Vallejo attends a left-wing demonstration against Croix de Feux in Paris on February 6.
On October ii Vallejo and Georgette get married in Paris.
1934-1936 Vallejo writes two plays, Colacho hermanos and La piedra cansada, but is unable to interest a publisher.41 Vallejo and Georgette move to a little hotel at 64, avenue du Maine, near rue de la Gaite. They often have lunch at the Cercle Francois Villon, an association for unemployed intellectuals (Aula Vallejo, 141). They pawn many of Georgette's possessions during this period, including an antique mirror (More, 22-24). Vallejo frequents a nearby workingman's bistro called Le Lion, where the beer, always Vallejo's favorite drink, is very cheap. 2 He is such a regular customer that the proprietor lets him have beer for seventy centimes instead of eighty (More, 58).
1935 On December 25 Vallejo writes to Juan Larrea asking him to inquire whether Jose Bergamin has received-via Rafael Alberti-his offer of "my publishable book of poems"43- most likely the poems of Poemas en prosa and the undated poems of Poemas humanos.
1936 On February 28 Vallejo publishes "Recentes decouvertes an pays des Incas," BeauxArts, no. 165: I.
On July i6-i8 the Spanish Civil War breaks out, and Vallejo is caught up in the cause. He begins writing articles in support of the Republic, often going to the Montparnasse train station to hear the latest news from the front line.
On September 11 Vallejo publishes "L'homme et Dieu dans la sculpture incaique," Beaux-Arts.
On December 15 Vallejo leaves Paris to visit Barcelona and Madrid; while in Madrid he visits the front line. He begins writing the first drafts of the poems that will come together as Espana, aparta de mi este caliz, often using an individual battle as inspiration for the poem. He returns to Paris on December 31-
1937 On July 4-8 Vallejo attends the Second International Writers' Congress for the Defense of Culture held in Valencia and Madrid (Ehrenberg called it a "moving circus"). As the official Peruvian delegate, he gives a speech in Madrid, "La responsabilidad del escritor," which is later published in El Mono Azut, no. 444
On September 4 Vallejo helps to found the Ibero-American Committee for the Defense of the Spanish Republic and its bulletin, Nuestra Espana. He is later sidelined because of his Trotskyist sympathies.45
From September 3 to December 8 Vallejo writes the dated poems of Poemas humanos and Espana, aparta de mi este caliz (the Civil War Poems). He types them on Rene Mossisson's typewriter, in the latter's hotel room on Rue Daguerre (More, 69). Every day for three months, Vallejo reads Georgette the poems he has typed up during the day (jAlla ellos!, 107).
1938 On March 13 Vallejo falls ill and takes to his bed. His symptoms become worrying (jAlla ellos!, 117), and on March 24 he is transferred to the Clinique Generale de Chirurgie (Villa Arago). Although the doctors-including an eminent specialist, Dr Lemiere- run various tests, they are unable to agree on the cause of his illness.
On April 15 (Good Friday), Vallejo dies at 9:20 A.M. in the Villa Arago clinic. The death certificate records intestinal infection as the cause of death, but this has not prevented incessant speculation as to the "real" cause of death, including malaria, syphilis, exhaustion, spiritual martyrdom-given the day he died-and even grief over the Spanish Civil War.46 Georgette has a death mask of Vallejo created on April i6.
On April 18 Vallejo is buried in the Montrouge Cemetery; homilies are given by Louis Aragon, Antonio Ruiz Vilaplana, and Gonzalo More. The tombstone lists Vallejo's year of birth incorrectly as 1893.
Although she has lived with him for years, even Georgette is surprised to find the wealth of unpublished papers Vallejo leaves on his death 47 These consist of
autographs of the posthumous poems, which Georgette would attempt to publish in 1978-1979 and later destroy;
typescripts of the posthumous poems, which Georgette would publish in facsimile in 1968 and donate to the Hogar Clinica San Juan de Dios;
manuscripts and typescripts of Vallejo's plays, which she would later publish in 1979, donating most to the Biblioteca Nacional and some to the Library of the Pontificia Universidad Catolica del Peru;48
the typescript of "Rusia ante el segundo plan quinquenal," which would be published in 1965;
typewritten essays, which Georgette would edit and use to produce two collections, El arte y la revolucion and Contra el secreto profesional, published in 1973; the typescripts were later donated to the Biblioteca Nacional.
1939 Georgette publishes Poemas humanos in Paris, an edition that included all the posthumous poems (including the war poems) 49
1940 An edition of Espana, aparta de mi este caliz overseen by Emilio Prados is published on February 9 by Editorial Seneca in Mexico City.'°
1951 In May, Georgette travels on the steamboat Reina del Pac fico from Paris to Lima with Vallejo's manuscripts. As she steps off the boat in Callao, she is met by Raul Porras Barrenchea, Sebastian Salazar Bondy, and others." She remains in lima.
1957-1958 Thanks to Porras Barrenchea's intervention, Georgette is granted a modest monthly allowance of twenty-seven hundred soles from the Ministry of Education.52
1965 Rusia antes el segundo plan quinquenal is published in Lima.
1968 Georgette publishes a facsimile edition of the typescripts of the posthumous poetry, now divided up as Poemas humanos, Poemas en prosa, and Espana, aparta de mi este caliz. Her pension from the Ministry of Education is unexpectedly curtailed.53
1970 Georgette returns to Paris to oversee the transfer of Vallejo's remains to Montparnasse Cemetery (twelfth division, 4 North, No. 7), close t
o Baudelaire's grave, where Vallejo told Georgette he would like to be buried. Vallejo's birth date is now listed correctly as 1892; Georgette has a section from one of her poems-"j'ai tant neige/pour que to dormes"- inscribed on the tomb.54 Vallejo's grave soon becomes a place of pilgrimage for poets.
1973 Georgette edits and publishes Vallejo's essays, El arte y la revolucion and Contra el secretoprofesional, in Lima. She subsequently donates the typescripts to the manuscripts section of the Biblioteca Nacional in Lima.
1974 With the proceeds from book royalties, Georgette purchases and moves into an apartment at no. 5241-301, Avenida Arequipa in Miraflores, Lima.55
1976-1978 Georgette has a number of problems with translators and editors who produce new editions of Vallejo's work in various languages.56
1978 The major English translation by Clayton Eshleman and Jose Rubia Barcia, Cesar Vallejo: The Complete Posthumous Poetry (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press), is published and wins the prestigious National Book Award.
A copy of the Spanish edition of Espana, aparta de mi este caliz is discovered by Pedro Lastra Salazar and Juan Gilabert in the Montserrat Monastery near Barcelona.57
1978-1979 Georgette attempts to publish the autographs of the posthumous poems with Angel Rama in his Ayacucho Series, but the project falls through.58
1979 Georgette publishes Vallejo's drama.59 The typescripts and manuscripts are shared between the Biblioteca Nacional and the Library of the Pontificia Universidad Cat6lica del Peru.
Later that year Georgette is partially paralyzed and lives from now on at the Maison de Sante in Lima.
1983 Georgette donates some of Vallejo's belongings, including his passport, to the Library of the Pontificia Universidad Catolica del Peru. She donates the typescripts of the posthumous poems to the Hogar Clinica San Juan de Dios, Lima.60 Since there is no sign of the original autographs (or, indeed, of Vallejo's death mask), it must be assumed that Georgette destroyed them around this time.
1984 On December 5, Georgette dies in the Maison de Sante, Lima.
1995 After his momentous discovery of a photocopy of the original autographs of the posthumous poems among Angel Rama's private papers in Montevideo, Juan F16 publishes an article describing the autographs.61
1997-2004 Fifteen volumes of Vallejo's complete works are published by the press of the Pontifica Universidad Catolica del Peru, under the stewardship of Ricardo Silva-Santisteban and Salomon Lerner Febres. They include Vallejo's poetry, narrative, drama, correspondence, articles, and translations.
2003 An edition of the autographs is published by Tamesis and La Catolica University Press: Juan F16 and Stephen Hart, eds., Autdgrafos olvidados (London-Lima: Tamesis-La Catolica, 2003).
NOTES
EPIGRAPH This is how the Spanish journalist Fernando Ibanez, later killed in the Spanish Civil War, used to greet Vallejo; Juan Larrea, ed., Aula Vallejo 11-12-13 (C6rdoba: Universidad Nacional, Facultad de Filosofia y Humanidades, 1974), 193; hereafter cited in text as Aula Vallejo.
I Andre Coyne, "Apuntes biograficos de Cesar Vallejo," Mar del Sur, 8 (NovemberDecember 1949): n.p.
2 Oswaldo D. Vasquez Vallejo, Abraham Vallejo: ascendencia y nacimiento (Trujillo: Universidad Nacional de Trujillo, 1992), ao.
3 Antenor Samaniego, Cesar Vallejo: su poesia (Lima: Mejia Baca and P. L. Villanueva, 1954), 14-15-
4 Francisco Izquierdo Rios, Cesar Vallejo y su tierra, 3rd ed. (Lima: Villanueva, 1972051; hereafter cited in text as Izquierdo Rios.
5 Izquierdo Rios, Cesar Vallejo y su tierra, 144-
6 Juan Espejo Asturrizaga, Cesar Vallejo: itinerario del hombre (Lima: Mejia Baca, 1965), 24; hereafter cited in text as Espejo.
7 When I visited Santiago de Chuco in December 1981, however, I was told that Vallejo worked in Tamboras and not Quirulvica, which is a copper mine.
8 Esteban Pavlotich, "El paso de Vallejo per los Andes centrales del Peru," in Aproximaciones a Cesar Vallejo, vol. i, ed. Angel Flores (New York: Las Americas, 1971), 133•
9 Cesar Vallejo: Soneto, preliminary study by Edmundo Bendezu Aibar, edited and notes by Hugo Arias Hidalgo (Lima: Universidad Ricardo Palma Editorial Universitaria, 2003)-
Io For a comparison of the early drafts with the final versions, see Ricardo Silva-Santisteban, ed., Cesar Vallejo: poesia completa, 4 vols. (Lima: Pontificia Universidad Catolica del Peru, 1997), vol. 1, 65-237; and Cesar Vallejo: poemas completes, ed. Ricardo Gonzalez Vigil (Lima: Petroper6, 1998), 37-161. See also Americo Ferrari, ed., Cesar Vallejo: obra poetica (Madrid: Coleccion Archives, 1988), which has excellent notes.
11 "El Cesar Vallejo que yo conoci," in Cesar Vallejo, ed. Julio Ortega (Madrid: Taurus, 1974), 162.
12 Jesus Fernandez Palacios, "Georgette, la mujer del retrato," La palabra y el hombre 76 (1990): 281.
13 Roberto Paoli, "En los origenes de Trilce: Vallejo entre modernismo y vanguardia," in Mapas anatomicos de Cesar Vallejo (Florence: Casa Editrice D'Anna, 1981), 31-50; Jorge Cornejo Polar, "Vallejo y la vanguardia: una relacion problematica," in Estudios de literatura peruana (Lima: Banco Central de Reserva del Peru, 1998), 169-g0.
14 Georgette de Vallejo, lAlla ellos, ally ellos, ally ellos! (Lima: Zalvac, 1978), so; hereafter cited in text as lAlla ellos!
15 Coyne, "La fecha," 107n. 42; and Angel Flores, "Cronologia de vivencias e ideas," in Aproximaciones a Cesar Vallejo, ed. Angel Flores (New York: Las Americas, 1971), vol. 1, 43-
16 German Patron Candela, El proceso Vallejo (Trujillo: Universidad de Trujillo, 1992), 16o-63-
17 All the existing court proceedings were published in Patron Candela, El proceso Vallejo. They indicate that Vallejo was at the front of the crowd that gathered in the main square that afternoon and was heard inciting others to take part in the mayhem. He was seen holding a revolver, and in much of the evidence for the prosecution, he is mentioned as the instigator. Three years later, after his initial imprisonment in Trujillo, Vallejo fled to Europe to escape prosecution. See Stephen Hart, "Was Cesar Vallejo Guilty as Charged?" Latin American Literary Review 26, no. 51 (1998): 79-89.
18 Armando Bazan, Dolor y poesia (Lima: Biblioteca Universitaria, 1958), 42-48. Ernesto More recounts that when traveling on the subway Vallejo would refuse to sit down in order to avoid wearing out his pants, and before stepping off the train he would wait until the car had completely stopped so as to avoid wearing out his shoes. Vallejo en la encrucy'ada del drama peruano (Lima: Libreria y Distribuidora Bendezu, 1968), 26-27; hereafter cited in text as More.
19 Ricardo Gonzalez Vigil, Cesar Vallejo (Lima: Editorial Brasa, 1985), 82-83.
20 See articles in Cesar Vallejo, Articulos y cronicas completes, ed. Jorge Puccinelli, 2 vols. (Lima: Pontificia Universidad Cat6lica del Peru, 2002).
21 Juan Domingo Cordoba Vargas, Cesar Vallejo del Peru profundo y sacrificado (Lima: Jaime Campodonico, 1995), 45; hereafter cited in text as Domingo Cordoba.
22 Pablo Neruda, Confieso que he vivido: memorias (Buenos Aires: Losada, 1974), 93; my translation. This complimentary portrait of Vallejo contrasts with the rivalry Neruda clearly felt with Vallejo years later. When visiting Clayton Eshleman in New York City in 1966, Neruda made a point of saying that "Vallejo never wrote any poetry after he left Peru" (email from Clayton Eshleman to author, August 17, 2005)-
23 "Una gran reunion latinoamericana," Mundial, no. 353 (March 18, 1927); see Vallejo, Articulos, 1: 396-99.
24 Vallejo, Articulos.
25 Fernandez Palacios, "Georgette," 281.
26 Ibid.
27 Ibid.
28 Ibid.
29 Fernandez Palacios, "Georgette," 282.
30 "Testimonio de la Escritura de Testamento Ortorgada per Georgette Maria Phillipart Travers Viuda de Vallejo" (September 7, 1979; Fs. 14,151); Hogar Clinica San Juan de Dios, lima.
31 Cesar Vallejo, Correspondencia completa, ed. Jesus Cabel (Lima: Pontificia Universidad Catolica del Peru, 2002), 234-
32 Stephen Hart, "Was Cesar Vallejo a Communist? New light on the Ol
d Problem," Ibero- romania 22 (1985): 95-120-
33 The two More brothers on this occasion were Carlos and Ernesto; Vallejo would get to know the third More brother, Gonzalo, later. Ernesto wrote a memoir about VallejoVallejo en la encrucyada del drama peruano (Lima: Libreria y Distribuidora Bendez(1, 1968)-while Gonzalo gave a homily at Vallejo's funeral (see below).
34 Stephen Hart, "The Chronology of Cesar Vallejo's Poemas humanos: New Light on the Old Problem," Modern Language Review 97, no. 3 (2002): 602-19.
35 Larrea, Aula Vallejo, 204-
36 Vallejo's translations have been republished; see Rosario Valdivia Paz-Soldan, ed., Cesar Vallejo: traducciones completas, 2 vols. (lima: Pontificia Universidad Catolica del Peru, 2003)-
37 de Vallejo, lAlla ellos!, 40.
38 "I am correcting El arte y la revolucion. I think that it's a very, very good book. I like it a lot." Georgette de Vallejo, "Apuntes biograficos sobre Poemas en prosa y Poemas humanos," in Vision del Peru, ed. Washington Delgado and Carlos Milla Batres (lima: Editorial Milla Batres, 1969), 174. This sentence is also quoted by Flores, "Cronologia de vivencias," 117.
39 Stephen Hart, "Cesar Vallejo y sus espejismos," Romance Quarterly 49, no. 2 (2002): 114-15-
40 Vallejo describes the visit in a letter to Juan Larrea dated January 27, 1932; Vallejo, Correspondencia completa, 413-
41 de Vallejo, jAlla ellos!, 86.
42 Felipe Cossio del Pomar, "Con Cesar Vallejo en la otra orilla," Cuadernos Americanos 188, no. 3 (May-June 1973): 201-
43 Vallejo, Correspondencia completa, 439.
44 Vallejo, Articulos, 2: 967-73-
45 de Vallejo, jAlla ellos!, 100-5-
46 Stephen Hart, "Vallejo's `Other': Versions of Otherness in the Work of Cesar Vallejo," Modern Language Review 93, no. 3 (1998): 711-12. Vallejo's medical records have been published in Acta Herediana: Revista de la Universidad Peruana Cayetano Heredia 2, no. 12 (October 1991-March 1992): 75-87-
47 Anais Nin relates that Gonzalo More, one of Vallejo's very close friends, once told her that "Vallejo never showed his poetry, that he had tons and tons of it all over his room that nobody had ever read. And that he told in one poem, how he would die on All Saints' Day, and then that day came and he did die." The Diary of Anats Nin (19341939), vol. 2 (New York: Harvest/HBJ, 1970), 295. The prophetic poem is most likely "Black Stone on a White Stone," which mentions a Thursday in autumn; however, Vallejo died on Good Friday rather than All Saints' Day.