{{Italic title}} '''''Paco Yunque''''' is a children's story originally written in Spanish by Peruvian poet César Vallejo and first published (posthumously) in 1951.
==History== The story draws on Vallejo's own life experience; for some months, Vallejo had tutored the son of a land owner in the Sierra de Pasco.<ref name="Franco2010" /> Vallejo wrote ''Paco Yunque'' in April 1931, in response to a request from an editor that he write a children's story.<ref name="Vallejo1978" /> Upon reading the story, the editor rejected it as "too sad"; the work was not published until 1951.<ref name="Vallejo1978">{{cite book|author=Georgette de Vallejo|title=Vallejo, allá ellos, allá ellos, allá ellos!|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=tClCAAAAYAAJ|accessdate=9 February 2011|year=1978|publisher=Editorial Zalvac|pages=40, 53}}</ref><ref name="Clayton2011">{{cite book|author=Michelle Clayton|title=Poetry in Pieces: César Vallejo and Lyric Modernity|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Uiqb7g0ELAMC&pg=PA7|accessdate=9 February 2011|date=1 February 2011|publisher=University of California Press|isbn=978-0-520-26229-4|page=7}}</ref> It later became required reading in Peruvian schools.<ref name="Bangura2002">{{cite book|author=Abdul K. Bangura|title=Mario Fenyo on the Third World: A Reader|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=rkyWDOLTytwC&pg=PA89|accessdate=9 February 2011|date=1 August 2002|publisher=iUniverse|isbn=978-0-595-24545-1|page=89}}</ref> Juan Acevedo created a widely read comic-book version of the story.<ref name="Bangura2002" /><ref name="AcevedoVallejo1986">{{cite book|author1=Juan Acevedo|author2=César Vallejo|title=Paco Yunque: historieta basada en el cuento de César Vallejo|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=HMk8AAAAYAAJ|accessdate=9 February 2011|year=1986|publisher=Tarea}}</ref>
==Synopsis== Paco Yunque is the son of a poor Indian maid, who works for Dorian Grieve, an Englishman. Grieve, a railway manager and the town's mayor, has a son, Humberto, who is the same age as Paco. The story begins with their first school day. At school, Paco Yunque finds a friend in another boy, Paco Fariña, who is protective of him. Humberto however behaves like a nasty bully, and the teacher lets him get away with it, because of the standing Humberto's father has in the community.
When the teacher gives the class a test, Paco Yunque works very hard, while Humberto just doodles in his notebook. When the class goes for a break, Humberto steals Paco's work, rubs out his name, and puts his own name on the paper instead. He then hands Paco's work in, passing it off as his own. Paco, unable to explain what happened to his work, is punished by the teacher with a detention. Humberto, however, gets a good grade and a commendation, on the strength of Paco's work. Paco Yunque is reduced to impotent grief; his friend Paco Fariña tries to console him.<ref name="Franco2010">{{cite book|author=Jean Franco|title=César Vallejo: The Dialectics of Poetry and Silence|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=TyGOQg760NAC&pg=PA158|accessdate=9 February 2011|date=25 November 2010|publisher=Cambridge University Press|isbn=978-0-521-15781-0|page=158}}</ref>
==Further reading== * {{cite book|author=Suzanne Claire Alexander|title=César Vallejo and Paco Yunque|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=xZL2NwAACAAJ|accessdate=9 February 2011|year=1967|publisher=Indiana University}} * Forgues, Roland. 'Para una lectura de Paco Yunque de César Vallejo', Lexis, 2 (1978), 223-39
==References== {{reflist}}
==External links== * {{Wikisourcelang-inline|es}}
Category:Children's short stories Category:Socrealist literature Category:Peruvian literature