Alfredo Bryce Echenique

Alfredo Marcelo Bryce Echenique (19 February 1939 – 10 March 2026) was a Peruvian writer. He wrote numerous books and short stories; he was best known for his 1970 work A World for Julius. At the time of his death, he was considered to be the last living representative of the Latin American Boom, although he has also been categorized as being part of post-boom literature.

Bryce attended elementary school at the Colegio Inmaculado Corazón. At age 15, he entered the San Pablo British boarding school. He attended the National University of San Marcos, where he graduated in law and completed a parallel Bachelor of Arts in literature with a thesis on Ernest Hemingway. He went on to receive a doctorate in literature from the Sorbonne in Paris. At the Sorbonne, he studied classic and contemporary French literature for two academic years.

Throughout Europe Between 1965 and 1966, he subsequently lived in Perugia, Mykonos, and Germany, where he moved to study German with a grant from the Goethe-Institut.

Back in France, recognition and PhD in Peru Bryce returned to France and taught Spanish in a school in Paris's Le Marais district from 1967 to 1968. In 1968, he published his first book Huerto cerrado and a motion picture adaptation was released in 2021.

In 1972, he was awarded the Peruvian National Prize for Literature and in 1973, he entered as an assistant lecturer to the University of Vincennes (Paris VIII). A few years later in 1975, Bryce received a Guggenheim fellowship In 1999, he returned to Peru, where he resided at the time of his death in 2026. Bryce continued writing until 2019, when he published his final volume of memoirs and retired.

Claims of plagiarism In March 2007, Peruvian diplomat Oswaldo de Rivero wrote an article for the Lima newspaper El Comercio accusing Bryce of plagiarizing his article "Potencias sin poder". Bryce responded by saying the article had been submitted in error by his secretary. Also in 2007, he was accused of plagiarizing an article by ; Bryce apologized to Pérez Álvarez and claimed that political conspirators, intent on causing him harm, had submitted the article under his name.

In May 2008, the writer presented a complaint alleging that Bryce had plagiarized his works. The INDECOPI dismissed the complaint due to lack of evidence. However, in 2009, the INDECOPI found Bryce guilty of plagiarizing 16 articles from 15 different authors (among them de Rivero) and ordered him to pay a fine of 177,000 soles (equivalent to €41,000). Bryce maintained that he had never committed plagiarism; nevertheless, according to an open letter published in the newspaper El País, 40 cases of plagiarism by Bryce have been verified.

Personal life In 1968, the year he published Huerto cerrado, Bryce married Maggie Revilla. His second wife was Pilar de Vega Martínez, from Asturias, whom he married in 1980 in Spain. In 2004, he married a Peruvian lawyer, Ana Chávez Montoya. He also had a relationship with a Puerto Rican model, Tere Llanza; his final partner was Claudia Grau.

Death Bryce died in Lima on 10 March 2026, at the age of 87. His close friend, Spanish singer-songwriter Joaquín Sabina, published two poems in his honor. Álvaro Vargas Llosa, son of fellow Peruvian writer Mario Vargas Llosa, posted a tribute to Bryce on social media, calling him "one of the great Peruvian writers, and of the Spanish language". The Peruvian Ministry of Culture and the Peruvian Presidency also expressed their condolences.