Alfredo Bryce Echenique

Born in Lima, Peru, on 19 February 1939. He graduated in Literature and Law at the Higher National University of San Marcos in Lima. He continued his studies in France, Italy, Greece and Germany, and during a stay of eight months in Peru he obtained his Arts doctorate, specialising in Literature, at the same university. In 1980 he was contracted by the Paul Valéry University in Montpellier, where the following year he was appointed Professor of Latin American Literature and Civilisation. After living for ten years in Madrid, in 1999 he settled in Peru, and in the same year was named Doctor Honoris Causa by the Higher National University of San Marcos in Lima.

He has taught at universities in France, the United States and Latin America, and has lectured and taken part in literary workshops at Spanish universities such as the University of Alcalá de Henares, the International Menéndez Pelayo University and the Juan Carlos I University, on their summer courses.

Bryce Echenique has written numerous journalistic and travel chronicles. He has also contributed to newspapers and magazines in Peru, Spain, Chile, Mexico, Argentina and the United States. In addition to participating in the series Grandes Firmas of the Spanish agency EFE, he is currently a regular contributor to the magazines Somos and Nexos, in Mexico, and the cultural supplement of the Buenos Aires newspaper La Nación. He also sporadically contributes to the book review of the newspaper El Mercurio in Chile.

His best-known novels are Un mundo para Julius (A World for Julius), Tantas veces Pedro, La vida exagerada de Martín Romaña, El hombre que hablaba de Octavia de Cádiz, La última mudanza de Felipe Carrillo, No me esperen en abril, Reo de nocturnidad, La amigdalitis de Tarzan (Tarzan's Tonsilitis) and El huerto de mi amada (Planeta Prize 2002). He is also the author of the books of short stories Dos señoras conversan, Guía triste de París and La felicidad, ja, ja. His most recent journalistic contributions have been collected in the volumes A trancas y barrancas and Crónicas perdidas. He is author of the autobiographical book Permiso para vivir.