Guaman Poma

In the midst of native people’s discontent following Spanish conquest, a native Andean born after the fall of the Incas took up the pen to protest Spanish rule. Felipe Guaman Poma de Ayala wrote his Nueva corónica y buen gobierno to inform Philip III of Spain about the evils of colonialism and the need for governmental and societal reform. By examining Guaman Poma’s verbal and visual engagement with the institutions of Western art and culture, Rolena Adorno shows how he performed a comprehensive critique of the colonialist discourse of religion, political theory, and history. She argues that Guaman Poma’s work chronicles the emergence of a uniquely Latin American voice, characterized by the articulation of literary art and politics.

Following the initial appearance of Guaman Poma: Writing and Resistance in Colonial Peru, the 1990s witnessed the creation of a range of new studies that underscore the key role of the Nueva corónica y buen gobierno in facilitating our understanding of the Andean and Spanish colonial pasts. At the same time, the documentary record testifying to Guaman Poma’s life and work has expanded dramatically, thanks to the publication of long-known but previously inaccessible drawings and documents. In a new, lengthy introduction to this second edition, Adorno shows how recent scholarship from a variety of disciplinary perspectives sheds new light on Guaman Poma and his work, and she offers an important new assessment of his biography in relation to the creation of the Nueva corónica y buen gobierno.