Language as a battlefield. The American expression kuika according to Gamaliel Churata

Abstract

The last critical edition of El pez de oro (EPO), written by Helena Usandizaga and published by Cátedra in 2012 has influenced the way in which readers analyze Gamaliel Churata’s (Arturo Peralta Miranda) work. That situation transformed him into a canonical writer in the Peruvian and Latin American literature. Actually, Churata has come from a cult writer, almost not read or understood, into a writer whose works have been studied by researchers worldwide. He was born in Arequipa and before his literary fame he was known by important activities the Grupo Orkopata (GO) performed in Puno (a Peruvian highland small town located more than 3800 meters above the sea level on the banks of Lake Titicaca), which was published by the famous Boletín Titikaka (BT) between August 1926 and June 1930. It is well known that BT was the means of dissemination of the most important manifestations of Peruvian vanguard and, perhaps, Latin American vanguard. This paper intends to understand, analyze, characterize and interpret Churata’s linguistic proposal, which appears especially in the first part of his book EPO, published in 1957, although he started writing it in 1927, when its title was HOMILÍA DEL KHORI CHALLWA