Salaverry´s Life:

beginnings and loves

• Carlos Augusto Salaverry was born on December 4th, 1830 in Sullana. His parents were Felipe Santiago Salaverry Del Solar, a

soldier, and Vicenta Ramírez duarte, a housewife from Sullana.

• Salaverry was a poet, a drama writer, polititian, diplomatic and soldier.

• He got married twice. The first time was with Mercedes Felices when he was only 20 years old. The marriage didn't work. His

second and shortest one was with Ismena Torres, this was a not corresponded love.

Ismena´s Family took her to Europe because they didn't want her to be Carlos‘s girlfriend. This was a useful expierence for

him to write his poems: “Cartas a un Ángel”( in English: Letters to an

Angel”).

• When he was 15 years old he started his soldier career until getting the level of colonel. But he was a free thinking man who disliked strict disipline of that place. He went out from that place as quickly as he could.

• He used to like been alone and hardworker. He grew up and was the secretary of the president Mariano Ignacio Prado. He fought in the “2 De Mayo” batlle in 1886. He was a well-known Peruvian diplomatic, due this he could travel to United States, England, France and Italy.

• His first inspiration came to him when he was a child. He didn't live with his real mother in Sullana, his father wanted to give him a better life, so Salaverry del Solar took him to Lima to separate him from his real mother. The boy lived there with his stepmother and stepbrother. New house, new family, new home, and a thousand of hours only he and his lonelyness, sadness and his own shadow were a perfect inspiration for his first poems.

• Also his experiences as a soldier helped him too. In blue times he used to read Victor Hugo and Heinrich‘s books. That was a real inspiration to be a poet.

• But the most relevant in his poems are the love desilutions.

Job and Inspirations

Poems and his Death... A really surprisig thing about his career is that it wasn´t

planned. His first poem was on the newspaper “El Heraldo” from Lima, in 1855. His friend Trinidad Fernández helped him to do it.

• His most famous poems are “Diamantes y Perlas”(Diamonds and Pearls,1869), “Albores y destellos”(Dawn and Flashes, 1871), “Cartas a un Ángel”(Letters to an Angel, 1871), and “Misterios de la Tumba”(Mysteries of the Tomb, 1883).

• As a playwright he wrote many dramas like “Atahualpa o la conquista del Perú”(Atahualpa or the Conquest of Peru, 1854), “Abel o el pescador americano”(Abel or the American Fisherman, 1857), “El bello Ideal”(The beauiful Ideal, 1857), “EL Amor y el Oro”(Love and Gold,1861), “El Pueblo y el Tirano”(The People and the Tyrant, 1862), “Arturo”, and “El Hombre del Siglo XX”(Man of the 20th Century).

• La Estrella del Perú(Peru Star) was published in 1882 as a legend.

• He spent his last years of life in Paris, where he died of paralysis on April 9th, 1891.