César Vallejo
César Vallejo
Poet · 1892–1938
Who is César Vallejo?
César Abraham Vallejo Mendoza was born in Santiago de Chuco, in the Peruvian Andes, in 1892, and is widely regarded as one of the greatest poetic innovators of the Spanish language. His first collection, 'Los heraldos negros' (The Black Heralds, 1919), blended modernist forms with a deeply personal, anguished voice rooted in Andean and mestizo experience. His radically experimental second book, 'Trilce' (1922), broke apart syntax, spelling and meter in ways that anticipated the avant-garde and remain influential today. Vallejo moved to Europe in 1923, living mostly in Paris in poverty while working as a journalist and engaging with Marxist politics; he travelled to the Soviet Union and supported the Republican cause in the Spanish Civil War. His later poems, gathered posthumously as 'Poemas humanos' (1939) and 'España, aparta de mí este cáliz', express profound human solidarity and suffering. He died in Paris in 1938.
Sources: César Vallejo, 'Los heraldos negros' (1919) · César Vallejo, 'Trilce' (1922) · César Vallejo, 'Poemas humanos' (posthumous, 1939)
No quotes attributed to César Vallejo yet. Browse PE quotes →
More Poets
Dorothea Mackellar
She wrote "My Country", the iconic poem celebrating the Australian landscape.
Nizami Ganjavi
He authored the Khamsa, five narrative poems including Layla and Majnun, a foundational work of classical Persian and Azerbaijani literary heritage.
Muhammad Fuzuli
He wrote the Azerbaijani Turkic epic "Leyli and Majnun" and is considered one of the greatest classical poets of Azerbaijani literature.
Mak Dizdar
He wrote Stone Sleeper (Kameni spavač), a landmark poetry collection inspired by Bosnia's medieval stećci tombstones.
Li Bai
He is one of the most celebrated poets in Chinese history, a defining voice of Tang-dynasty poetry.
Du Fu
He is regarded as one of the greatest Chinese poets, whose work vividly captured the suffering of his era.