Julio Ramón Ribeyro , was born on August 31, 1929, in Lima. He is the son of Julio Ramón Ribeyro and Mercedes Zúñiga. His primary studies were attended at the Champagnat school. In 1946 he entered the Catholic University, enrolling in the faculties of Letters and Law . In 1952 he traveled to Spain, thanks to a scholarship conferred by the Institute of Hispanic Culture. From there he continued on to Paris, attending the Sorbonne University. In 1958, back in Lima, he devoted himself to the creation of an Institute of Popular Culture commissioned by the University of Huamanga (Ayacucho), work that ended in 1959. In 1961 he traveled again to Paris, where he worked for more ten years as a writer and translator for the France Press agency . He was then appointed cultural attaché to the embassy in Paris and simultaneously served as Peru's representative to UNESCO.
Publication of Julio Ramón Ribeyro's books
In 1955 he had published his first book of short stories titled The buzzards without feathers , where one of the constants that would mark his work could already be appreciated:the portrait of marginalized urban characters, the majority belonging to a middle class in the process of deterioration. Consecrated as the best contemporary Peruvian short story writer, he ventured into other genres such as the novel ( Crónica de San Gabriel , 1960), the prose of reflection (Stateless prose , 1975), literary criticism (The subtle hunt , 1976) and theater (Atusparia , 1981). His short story work has been collected in the volumes of The word of the mute , edited by Carlos Milla Batres.
In 1973 a cancer was detected that would finally cause his death on December 4, 1994 , shortly after having won the consecrated international award "Juan Rulfo", whose delivery he was no longer able to attend. A year before he had decided to settle definitively in Peru, this is how the history of Peru is a great writer.