The Peruvian Notebooks

Download or read book The Peruvian Notebooks written by Braulio Mu–oz and published by University of Arizona Press. This book was released on 2006 with total page 292 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Although Antonio Alday Gutierrez dreams of great success when coming to America, he accepts work as a security guard at a shopping mall and lives in a modest apartment. To soften the bleak reality of his disappointing life, Antonio invents a privileged Peruvian past to mislead his new American friends. He also sends letters to his family in Peru boasting of a thriving business and large home. This double deception leads Antonio to commit an act of desperation to conceal the drab reality of his new American life. Told in a series of flashbacks, letters, and excerpts from notebooks, this epistolary novel takes readers on a cultural and spiritual journey, touching on themes of self-identity, memory, border crossing, and death. Munoz layers the narrative with various voices, times, and places to offer a profound vision of the immigrant experience. One of the first immigrant stories told from the Peruvian point of view, this novel provides a portrait of ambition, self-deception, and acceptance.