Criticism of the book Huaraca by Luis Francisco Palomino: Back to the suburbs | Where to buy it | Random House Literature 2025 | Eldominical

By Luis Francisco Palomino (Lima, 1991) we had already had news: in 2019 His first storybook was reviewed in this column“No one will miss us,” which was circulating through the vericuetos of a popular narrative associated with dirty realism, to which they have subsequently assigned young people such as JJ Maldonado, Enmanuel Grau or Leonardo Ledesma Watson. Palomino’s debut was promising, because there were in those stories a plausible recreation of that convulsive universe that is San Juan de Miraflores -sus hills that are confused with the night, the myriad of lights that constel to them as murky stars, the entangled streets, latent violence in certain corners- and an unusual agility to tell. We could also detect hesitations when finishing their stories, which they tended as surprising as dissonant, as well as the inclination for thick stroke in the treatment of some situations and psychologies.

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Six years have passed from that, and Palomino returns with a much more mature and toned volume, “Huaraca”. Nine stories of diverse theme and extension that take place in that peripheral and bustling world that he knows so well and who knows how to extract his raw speech, his atmospheres at the same time celebratory and bitter, certain decisive details that betray a knowledge that transcends the impossible literary remains with which some authors make up their adventures by low funds.

Of the texts that make up “Huaraca”, three seem to me anthological. The first is “The Champions League”, where the well -profiled character of the father, owner of a worthy virulence that vertebra a story in which the silences and the question build an end that resonates in many ways in the perception of the reader. The same can be said of “subway”, whose attractive premise – a single mother who taxi in the early morning in dangerous neighborhoods to fulfill a promise to his daughter – is executed with a lender in an extensive composition that does not suffer greater ups and downs in its development (and also crowned by another very achieved conclusion). For his part, “Angel of Lendejuelas” is the best writing, crossed by a remarkable sense of rhythm and an angry lyricism that is sustained in the vital crossing of another memorable character, the evil Lampa, epitome of man with codes – most principles – that can aspire to a humanity where it seems to have disappeared.

There are other stories that show equal successes and defects. This is the case of “Track 9-Unknown interpreter”, a long breath piece in which we find a couple of valuable scenes-that occurs in a thunderous disco, for example-and a solid protagonist, but also irregularity in the bill of certain episodes and an abrupt ending that corroborates the impression to be in front of a story full of good ideas but aimlessly. “Zero ballots”, almost a short novel, is another example of fortunate moments and unequal sections, in general affected by the caricatural line that separates the marked middle class girl from her marginal pretender. However, these objections, we are facing a serious writer, with a singular imagination and with a wide margin to grow.