I.- Answer the following questions:
1. Have you ever listened about Ciro Alegria?_______________ _________________________________________________
2. Do you know when was he born? _________________________
3. What do you know about him?_________________________ _________________________________________________
4. Have you already read a book about Ciro Alegria?____________
5. Do you know when Ciro Alegria died?______________________
WHILE READING
1. Circle the Past Tense verbs.
2. Read the text and tell the class what kind of text is it? ____________________________________________________
3. What is the Main Idea of the text? ____________________________________________________
CIRO ALEGRIA:
“A Centenary Birthday Year”
Ciro Alegria Bazan was born on November 4th, 1909 in Quilca, Sartimbamba (La Libertad). His parents were Mr. Jose Alegria and Herminia Bazan Lynch. His grandfather Diego (James) Lynch was said to have made and lost a fortune in mines. Alegria acquired a firsthand knowledge of Indian life in his native province of Huamachuco.
The deep understanding of the oppressed people became the focus of all his later literary works.
Alegria's first grade teacher was the poet César Vallejo (1892-1938). He received secondary education at San Juan National High School, in Trujillo. In the late 1920s he worked for a year as a reporter and then on construction and road-building projects. In 1930 he returned to the newspapers El Norte and La Industria, later he attended classes at the University of Trujillo, without taking a degree.
In 1930, he joined the Aprista movement, overtly a party dedicated to social and economic reform and to improving the lot of the Indian majority. He was twice jailed, in 1931 and 1933, for illegal political activity. In 1934 he was exiled to Chile, where he contracted tuberculosis.
Alegria wrote short stories to a Buenos Aires newspaper and expanded one of them into a novel, LA SERPIENTE DE ORO (1935, The Golden Serpent). Set among the river villagers of the Marañon, it depicted their struggle for survival. The title refers to the river, as source of death and renewal. Alegria's second novel, LOS PERROS HAMBRIENTOS (1938, The Hungry Dogs), was set in northern Peru and revealed the difficulties of shepherd Indians. According to Alegria, the white landowners were the cause of Peru's economic backwardness.
Alegria's masterpiece is El mundo es ancho y ajeno (1941; Broad and Alien is the World). It depicts in epic manner the struggles of an Indian tribe to survive in the Peruvian highlands against the greed of land-hungry white men.
From 1941 to 1948 Alegria lived in New York, United States of America. He taught later at the University of Puerto Rico and wrote in Cuba of the Cuban revolution. In 1957 he returned to Peru, where he joined President Belaunde Terry's Accion Popular party and was elected to the Chamber of Deputies in 1963.
He died suddenly at the age of fifty-seven, in Trujillo on February 17, 1967. Alegria was married three times. Alegria's widow collected and published many of the author's essays and tales that he wrote for newspapers.
POST READING“A Centenary Birthday Year”
Ciro Alegria Bazan was born on November 4th, 1909 in Quilca, Sartimbamba (La Libertad). His parents were Mr. Jose Alegria and Herminia Bazan Lynch. His grandfather Diego (James) Lynch was said to have made and lost a fortune in mines. Alegria acquired a firsthand knowledge of Indian life in his native province of Huamachuco.
The deep understanding of the oppressed people became the focus of all his later literary works.
Alegria's first grade teacher was the poet César Vallejo (1892-1938). He received secondary education at San Juan National High School, in Trujillo. In the late 1920s he worked for a year as a reporter and then on construction and road-building projects. In 1930 he returned to the newspapers El Norte and La Industria, later he attended classes at the University of Trujillo, without taking a degree.
In 1930, he joined the Aprista movement, overtly a party dedicated to social and economic reform and to improving the lot of the Indian majority. He was twice jailed, in 1931 and 1933, for illegal political activity. In 1934 he was exiled to Chile, where he contracted tuberculosis.
Alegria wrote short stories to a Buenos Aires newspaper and expanded one of them into a novel, LA SERPIENTE DE ORO (1935, The Golden Serpent). Set among the river villagers of the Marañon, it depicted their struggle for survival. The title refers to the river, as source of death and renewal. Alegria's second novel, LOS PERROS HAMBRIENTOS (1938, The Hungry Dogs), was set in northern Peru and revealed the difficulties of shepherd Indians. According to Alegria, the white landowners were the cause of Peru's economic backwardness.
Alegria's masterpiece is El mundo es ancho y ajeno (1941; Broad and Alien is the World). It depicts in epic manner the struggles of an Indian tribe to survive in the Peruvian highlands against the greed of land-hungry white men.
From 1941 to 1948 Alegria lived in New York, United States of America. He taught later at the University of Puerto Rico and wrote in Cuba of the Cuban revolution. In 1957 he returned to Peru, where he joined President Belaunde Terry's Accion Popular party and was elected to the Chamber of Deputies in 1963.
He died suddenly at the age of fifty-seven, in Trujillo on February 17, 1967. Alegria was married three times. Alegria's widow collected and published many of the author's essays and tales that he wrote for newspapers.
I. Answer the following questions.
1. Where was Ciro Alegria born?__________________________
2. What school did he study?_____________________________
3. What are Ciro Alegria’s novels? _________________________
__________________________________________________
4. Why was he twice jailed? ______________________________
5. Why do you think he was in New York, Puerto Rico and Cuba?
__________________________________________________
II. Choose the best definition for the underlined words.
1. A centenary birthday.
a) A hundred years since a person was born.
b) A hundred and fifty years birthday.
2. A firsthand knowledge.
a) Knowledge gained through direct at primary school.
b) Knowledge gained through direct experience or observation.
III. Write events at Ciro Alegria’s life.
Year
Events
1909 He was born in Quilca.
1920s ....................................................................................
1930 ....................................................................................
1931 ....................................................................................
1934 ....................................................................................
1935 ....................................................................................
1938 ....................................................................................
1941 ....................................................................................
1963 ....................................................................................
1967 ....................................................................................
