Silva-Santisteban, Ricardo (2013): Breve historia de la traducción en el Perú. Lima: Instituto Bibliográfico del Perú, 117 p.

Ricardo Silva-Santisteban (1941) is a Peruvian poet, essayist and translator with a long history in the literary editorial field in his country. Additionally, he is a professor of comparative literature at the Pontifical Catholic University of Peru and current President of the Academia Peruana de la Lengua (Peruvian Language Academy). His research activity is closely related to his interest in the publication of translations during the colonial and republican periods of Peruvian history, translations which include, first of all, literary texts translated into Spanish from other Romance, Germanic and Asian languages, as well as literary texts from Peruvian native languages into Spanish. His production regarding translation history can be appreciated in the five volumes of his Antología general de la traducción en el Perú (General Anthology of Translation in Peru), his contribution to the Diccionario histórico de la traducción en Hispanoamérica (Historical Translation Dictionary of Hispanic America; Lafarga and Pegenaute 2013) and the book being reviewed. Professor Silva-Santisteban’s editorial interest helps us understand both the content and the function of Breve historia de la traducción en el Perú (Brief History of Translation in Peru, Spanish edition) within the framework of Translation Studies. With three clearly-defined sections – a descriptive historical essay, a bibliographic section and a directory of translators and translations –, Breve historia de la traducción en el Perú is a useful consultation registry to obtain names and information about several manuscripts and literary works translated in Peru or by Peruvian translators within the period starting from the Spanish Conquest, through the rise and fall of the Viceroyalty and up to the founding of the Republic and current times. The first section, the descriptive historical essay, which shares its name with the book title, presentsaccurate historical data about the production of translations in Peru. It includes publication dates for translations, some biographical data of translators and authors, brief passages aimed towards contextualizing the time of production of the texts, and some other passages regarding text style and literary criticism. While the information is organized chronologically, the accumulation of information (particularly dates) renders the essay dense and not easy to read in spite of its briefness. Although few, the passages where the author further elaborates the political or cultural changes that sparked those translations are a breath of fresh air. In these segments of the text, the essay takes a narrative tone that brings it closer to history. The information on the second and third sections seems to be a supplement to the essay. In the case of “Contribución a la bibliografía de la traducción en el Perú” (Contribution to Translation Bibliography in Peru), the author presents information from a series of studies and anthologies about literary translation. Since there is no introductory note for this section, or for the book as a whole, we can assume that some of the books referenced contain academic-historical prologues or introductions about (literary) translation. The last section of the book “Traductores” (Translators), presents complete bibliographic information about translations performed by Peruvian translators. Unlike the information presented in the first section, the data is organized chronologically according to the date of birth of the translators, whose names are used as subtitles for the group of works they translated. It is worth noting that professor Silva-Santisteban has been publishing for the past seven years his Antología general de la traducción en el Perú, a monolingual corpus that includes literary translations in chronological order covering the period between the 16^th century and the first half of the 20^th century. Both works, Breve historia de la traducción en el Perú and the Anthology are …