EL LAZARILLO DE CIEGOS CAMINANTES

The Lazarillo. offers a sound and credible vision of the colonial life between 1771 and 1773, as well as practical details of the trip from Montevideo up to Lima, through Buenos Aires, Córdoba, Salta, Potosí, Chuquisaca and Cuzco. According to José Luis Busaniche, the argentine born historian, through its pages flows a new feeling about nature, far apart from the previous letters and documents of the colonial era Its first edition circulated in a clandestine way in America. The text is the transcription of don Alonso Carrió de la Vanderas writings during his royal commission of fixing the postal system between Montevideo and Lima. The author is mentioned as Don Calixto Bustamante Carlos Inga, also known as Concolorcorvo, who went along the commissioner in said journey and wrote the extracts Calixto Bustamante Carlos Inca existence is proven, as well as documented the commission and trip of visitador Carrió, however Concolorcorvo shows a curiously remarkable erudition for a man of his extraction. According to Bartolomé Mitre the book was written by an erudite person, knowledgeable of the Spanish America customs. Don Alonso Carrió de la Vandera spent most of his life in Mexico and Peru, and was in Buenos Aires in 1749. His letters are written in a far from vulgar prose and full of classics quotations. It would not be strange that he had authored El Lazarillo himself. There is a letter from Lima addressed to the postal service administrator in Buenos Aires, don Domingo de Basavilbaso, asking him to receive and protect a don Calixto Bustamante Carlos Inca, who was starting his journey to the Río de la Plata. Abandoned and in need due to the death of his master Señor don Antonio Guill y Gonzaga, President of the Realm of Chile, he wished to change his fortune because the temperament of Lima had proven contrary to his health. There is no proof of Bustamantes appearance in Buenos Aires, but had it been so he would have stayed at the same time as Carrió prepar