Narrative
Peregrinations of a Pariah
Pérégrinations d'une paria
Flora Tristan · 1838
Synopsis
A Frenchwoman who presents herself as unmarried sails for Peru, where her father's family lives, her father having died when she was four, in order to have her rights recognised there. In Arequipa, her uncle takes her in under his roof, but grants her, as a natural child, only a share of the inheritance and an allowance. She observes the city, whose social inequalities and conservative customs she denounces, then spends some time in Lima, of which she paints the same unsparing portrait.
Context
The two volumes were published in Paris by Arthus Bertrand in 1838, dedicated to the Peruvian people and dated August 1836; a second edition followed the same year from Ladvocat. The narrative follows the journey and stay of 1833 and 1834. In Peru, the book caused a scandal, and the uncle who had taken the traveller in stopped paying her the allowance he had granted her. It did not appear there until the twentieth century: the first Spanish translation, by Emilia Romero, dates from 1941, and another, by Catalina Recavarren, from 1959.
Who it is for
A long narrative in two volumes, in French in the original; it can be read in paperback from Actes Sud, in the edition by Stéphane Michaud.
Prizes and reception
The book made its author, in Peru, the recognised forerunner of feminism, studied by Magda Portal and Luis Alberto Sánchez.