La Canoa, by Susana Baca.
Born in Lima, Susana Baca grew up in a small coastal town called Chorillos. Baca describes life in the predominantly Afro-Peruvian barrio as filled with music. As a child, she would accompany her mother when she cleaned homes and says that the only way she could keep still was when her mother put on classical music. Her father, who was a driver, was also the barrios own street guitarist and would often play outdoors with a group of neighborhood musicians.
While she was growing up, families in Chorillos would often gather in parks for festivals and religious processions. It was at these festivals that Susana found a place to perform, entering dance contests and singing before audiences of familiar faces.
Her main literary influences include writers like Arturo Perez Revete, Alfredo Bryce, Javier Marias and Mario Vargas Llosa. She has a kinship to Vargas Llosa, in the tradition of Peruvian social protest in her understated manner and actions against machismo and racial prejudice-a manner that never becomes propaganda.
2 окт 2009
