Julius es un niño inteligente y bien tratado por la fortuna, que resulta pretexto, punto de continua confluencia de un sistema de costumbres y de ideas que configuran una situación tenida de buen gusto, amenazada por la fragilidad y subrayada por una injusticia terrible.

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Un mundo para Julius fue elegida como la mejor novela peruana de todos los tiempos, tras una encuesta entre 80 escritores y criterios peruanos llevada a cabo por la revista Debate. La novela es el retrato de un sector feliz y despreocupado de la oligarquía limeña que, en realidad, refleja el mundo de la oligarquía de otra muchas ciudades contemporáneas.

Bryce Echenique crea un mundo verbal y de sentimientos a través de la infancia . Ello no escatima la mirada atenta sobre el sector entronizado en la pirámide social. En esta complejidad narrativa, así como en el aporte fundamental al género llamado "novela de la educación", y al de la narrativa extensa que sabe evocar su tiempo jamás perdido.

When we think of Peruvian authors, we think of Nobelist Mario Vargas Llosa. Having read this novel, I hope more people will become acquainted with Peruvian author Alfredo Bryce Echenique.

A World for Julius won Peru's National Book Award for the year it was written, and it is also the winner of the Outstanding Translation Award of the American Literary Translator's Association and the Columbia University Translation Center Award.

How do I describe this book? Well, it is the story of Julius from age 2 to age 12. Julius is the youngest child of an oligarchic Peruvian family. The time is the 1950's, and as the novel begins Julius's father has just died. Within a short time his mother remarries. His stepfather and older brothers exude Latin American machismo. (When one of his older brothers attempts to rape Julius's nanny, the stepfather's solution is to fire the nanny and buy the son a car). Julius's beautiful, distant and ephemeral mother is never present for Julius (or her other children for that matter). Her vocabulary is rife with words like "divine" and "Darling!" Her concerns are parties, clothes, golf, and whether Don Juan Lucas, her husband, is faithful.

Julius is mostly left in the company of the household staff--the cook, the laundress, the nanny, the maid, the chauffer, the gardener, all of whom are either Indian, Mestizo, or Mulatto. They create a rich life for him. In certain ways, the book could be looked at as a Peruvian "Upstairs, Downstairs," although a version that is not so forgiving of the "upstairs" people.

While the story is Julius's, and large parts are narrated from his point of view, the novel shifts seamlessly from the point of view of one character to another. We are in everyone's mind (except, curiously Don Juan Lucas--we see him only from the outside). Sometimes the writing slips into an almost hallucinatory stream of conciousness. Mostly, however, the writing style, while unique and unusual, is never hard to read or dense.

Here's the first paragraph of the book:

"Julius was born in a mansion on Salaverry Avenue, directly across from the old San Felipe Hippodrome. The mansion had carriage houses, gardens, a swimming pool, and a small orchard into which two year old Julius would wander and then be found later, his back turned, perhaps bending over a flower. The mansion had servant's quarters that were like a blemish on the most beautiful face. There was even a carriage that your great-grandfather used, Julius, when he was President of the Republic, be careful, don't touch! it's covered with cobwebs, and turning away from his mother, who was lovely, Julius tried to reach the door handle. The carriage and the servants' quarters always held a strange fascination for Julius...."

I loved this book, and highly recommend it. ( )