Peruvian literature began during the 16th century when , son of a Spanish conqueror and an Inca princess, wrote his (1609; Royal Commentaries of the Incas, 1869), a vivid historical chronicle about the Inca culture and empire. Several decades after the fall of the Inca empire, a native Andean from the area of Huamanga in the southern Peruvian Andes wrote to king Philip III of Spain. Felipe a's aim was to seek the reform of Spanish colonial governance in order to save the Andean peoples from the destructive forces of colonial exploitation, disease, and miscegenation. Finding his most persuasive medium to be the visual image, he composed 398 full-page drawings which are an integral part of his 1200-page Nueva corónica y buen gobierno.

Inca Garcilaso de la Vega

Another important writer of the colonial period was 17th-century satirist Juan del Valle y Caviedes. The foremost writers of the 19th century were, who wrote social criticism, and , who composed a collection of historical and legendary tales about Peru's past.
In the 20th century there has been an abundance of poets and prose writers. Among them are Ventura García Calderón, a diplomat who was also an essayist;i, a Marxist political essayist;

and the poets and in his famous El Mundo es ancho y ajeno (1941; Broad and Alien is the World), has produced one of the finest novels treating the plight of the indigenous peoples in Latin Americais probably the best interpreter of the indigenous world. Vargis an internationally famous novelist. One of Latin America's most important literary critics is Luis Alberto Sánchez.