Peruvian poet, writer, playwright, and journalist. Universal poetic innovator. Leftist political, social.

Sensual, prophetic, affectionate, wild. Takes language to a radical extreme, inventing words, stretching syntax, using automatic writing and other techniques now known as "surrealist". Borders on inaccessibility like James Joyce.

César Vallejo was born in 1892 in the town of Santiago de Chuco, Perú, where he was brought up along with his eleven older brothers and sisters.  Vallejo began writing poetry in 1913 and only five years later in 1918 he had his first collection of poems published, Los heraldos negros.  In 1922 he published Trilce, then a year later in 1923 he left his homeland and headed for Paris. His poems and other written work from this period took a strong grasp on the poorer and suffering side of society, and 1928 saw Vallejo travelling to Mosco in the belief that communism held the answers to social justice.  In 1931 he published his novel Tugsteno , and he became a member of