There are Peruvians who represent the country. And there are Peruvians who narrate it. Alejandro Neyra It belongs to that rare lineage that integrates both and that have made the word a bridge between cultures, times and imaginary. Although many know him for his diplomatic career, today we highlight it from his role as a writer, essayist and tireless explorer of the narratives that mold our national identity in the world.
Alejandro has dedicated much of his life to investigating how represents Peru in universal literature. From nineteenth -century French novels that imagined the country as a territory of virgins of the Sun and Inca sacrifices, to the unsuspected appearances of Vallejo in Korean novels, their work starts from a powerful intuition: each mention of Peru, by minimal or distorted that it is, is an opportunity to understand how we are seen, what ghosts we drag and what stories we have left without counting.
For Alejandro, literature is not a luxury, but a tool for cultural diplomacy, dialogue with the other and, above all, of deep understanding of ourselves. “The diplomats,” he says, “we also tell stories. And writers help us do it better.” It is from that conviction that you recommend that young diplomats read contemporary Peruvian literature, not only to understand the country they represent, but to offer the world a more human, more real Peru.
His passion for literature goes further. Know, quote and celebrate the work of contemporary writers and writers such as Gabriela Wiener, Karina Pacheco, Cati Adui, Rafael Dumett, Alonso Cueto and Gustavo Rodríguez, among others. Recognizes in them a unique capacity to Complex Peruunequal but also full of tenderness, resistance and beauty. A country that is not allowed to reduce only to tourist prints.
-Alejandro not only investigates or recommends: Write. His work – which covers both fiction and rehearsal – is deeply marked by that double look: that of the Peruvian who knows part of a major story, and that of the reader who intuits that the universal is only reached from the same. In a moment of global polarization and identity withdrawal, his voice proposes otherwise: Open Peru to the world without diluting itsharing our stories without simplifying them.
In his most recent chapter in the book Global Perupublished by the University of the Pacific and Planet, Alejandro explores the figure of Julio C. Tello as an entrance door to that Peru that dialogues with the world from the Science, thought and political action. And, with this, add another piece to a task that has made his own: rebuild the image of Peru from culture, with honesty, with memory and ambition for the future.
“I can’t stop thinking about Peru”, confesses. “It is in everything I write, what I read, what I teach.” Perhaps that is why, talking with Alejandro Neyra is to meet a narrated Peru with respect, tenderly and rigorously. A Peru that not only deserves to be counted, but also reread.
Alejandro has not only read Peru: he has thought about it, has written it, has defended him and has sown him in those who listen to him. It has the rare gift of interweave culture with empathy, lucidity with sensitivity, and rigor with a humility that inspires. In noise times, your voice is a fine thread that sews memory with the future. Listening to him talking about Peru – or reading it – is an invitation to love it more, to understand it better and, above all, to imagine it more fair, more free and more ours.
