The twentieth century has seen an impressive flourishing of Peruvian poetry, making it one of the richest in Latin America. This book is based on a series of in-depth readings of the work of a dozen outstanding figures – Eguren, Vallejo, Moro, Westphalen, Adán, Eielson, Belli, Varela, Cisneros, Hinostroza, Verástegui and Sánchez León. At the same time, these readings form part of a general study which, viewing Peruvian poetry as a process, examines the principal tendencies of the period spanning the 1920s and 1970s and relates it to the major literary movements of modern times and to Peru’s socio-political history.