Guaman Poma and His Illustrated Chronicle from Colonial Peru From a Century of Scholarship to a New Era of Reading

Published on the occasion of the opening of the full digital edition of the autograph manuscript of Felipe Guaman Poma de Ayala's Nueva corónica y buen gobierno (1615) on the website of the Royal Libary, Copenhagen, this new book by one of the world's most prominent Guaman Poma-scholars contains a survey (in English and in Spanish) of recent research. Guaman Poma dedicated his Chronicle to Philip III, King of Spain, but it has been preserved since the 18th century in the Royal Library, Copenhagen. 'Rediscovered' by modern scholarship in 1908, it was included in UNESCO's 'Memory of the World' list in 1999. Written and illustrated by a Christianised native Andean of Southern Peru, several decades after the Spanish conquest, the Nueva corónica is a complex and unique mixture of historiography and utopianism. On one hand, it contains an entirely original framework for Andean historical self-understanding, as an alternative to the colonial viewpoint. On the other hand, based upon vivid written and graphic descriptions of Andean daily life and sufferings under colonial rule, Guaman Poma formulates far-reaching proposals for reform aimed at turning the chaotic viceroyalty into a dynamic self-governed kingdom within the Spanish empire. Guaman Poma envisioned this new order as Christian, but organised in accordance with Andean economic, social, and cultural tradition.