The Chamber of Mines of Peru participated in the tribute to the writer Luis Enrique Tord in FIL 2017.
In order to recognize the literary work of a great writer, the Lima International Book Fair carried out a meaningful tribute to the recently deceased Luis Enrique Tord, who through several years of work delivered different literary works, standing out narrative genre in stories and novels.
The literary tribute took place on July 31 in the José María Arguedas auditorium, during the 22nd edition of the International Book Fair. Recognized authors like Ricardo Gonzales Vigil and Fernando de Trazegnies, the author’s friends, as well as his oldest son Álvaro Tord were part of the head table.
Álvaro Tord himself recognized the cultural effort made by his father, through the years he gathered historical prehispanic and colonial topics, exposing and speculating in an evocative way about the continuity between the processes and symbols of our Inca past, and the one created after the arrival of the Spaniards, to settle a first Peruvian community.
Tord mentioned a publication of his father in 2008, called «La montaña roja» (The red mountain). This work discusses about the mining of ancient Alto Peru, Potosi, at the end of 16th and beginning of the 17th century; when the place was considered as the economic heart of the Spanish empire. His father stood out the reality of the mining situation of that time, where the exploitation of slaves and abuse from the conquerors were part of everyday life.
The Chamber of Mines of Peru, as part of its commitment to the culture, also offers tribute to Luis Enrique Tord in order to remember the importance of knowing the different periods of our history to understand the present.
Several of Tord’s works take place in the rarely understood viceroyalty time, where several bases of our society and national institutions were settled.
For instance, «La montaña roja» (The red mountain) illustrates through literary fiction the mining activity role during that period of our history. Comprehension and dissemination may help to understand the processes of the same nature happening at present, in order to make them the base of a new and better mining.
The historian, anthropologist, poet and narrator Luis Enrique Tord was born on January 27, 1942, and died on June 2, 2017. Among his «research», literary fictions presented as historical reports, titles such as «Oro de Pachacámac» (Gold from Pachámac), «Sol de los Soles» (Sun of the Suns), «Bestiario Celestial» (Celestial Bestiary) and «La Montaña Roja» (The red mountain) stood out.
His historical research is equally relevant. For example, «Crónicas del Cuzco» (Cuzco Chronicles) and «Arte y Fe en el Virreinato del Perú» (Art and Faith in Peruvian Viceroyalty), among other publications.
The writer was Director of the National Institute of Culture of Peru (INC) in two periods: 1982-1983 and 2000-2001. Furthermore, he was member and president of the Inter American Committee on Culture of the OAS, and Chief of the Peruvian delegation at the World Conference on Cultural Politics held in Mexico by UNESCO.
Tord was also deputy in the Democratic Constituent Congress (CCD) from 1992 to 1995. His last public office was as councilman in the Metropolitan Municipality of Lima from 2015 to 2018.
