Culture Project: Find out about two Peruvian authors/sports people

In one of my earlier posts I mentioned that I had to do culture projects for the year I was in Peru so I can learn more about the Peruvian people and the culture. I also said I would share these on my blog so everyone else can learn as well.

Peru has many famous sports people and literary figures and my first project was to find out about two of these people and I chose Nolberto Solano, a footballer and Santiago Roncagliolo an author.

Nolberto Solano

Nolberto Solano Todco or otherwise known as ‘Nobby’ or ‘Nol’ was born in Callao, Peru on 12 December 1974. He is a Peruvian footballer and last played in 2011 for Hartlepool United who are in League One. He plays in two positions – Midfield and Full Back (don’t ask me to explain those as have no clue).  Out of the many sports stars of Peru that I could have focused one, I chose Nolberto Solano because he used to play for my favourite football team – Newcastle United.

Throughout his football career which spans from 1992 to the present, Nobby has played for 12 clubs and interestingly played for Newcastle United twice, from 1998 – 2004 and then again from 2005-2007, he must have loved the place so much he had to go back. Throughout his time in Newcastle, Nobby scored 45 goals in 240 appearances. His other teams are:

·                     Sporting Cristal  (1992-1993) and (1994-1997)

·                     Deportivo Muncipal (1993-1994)

·                     Boca Juniors (1997-1998)

·                     Aston Villa (2005-2005)

·                     West Ham United (2007-2008)

·                     Larissa (2008)

·                     Universitario de Deportes (2009)

·                     Leicester City (2010)

·                     Hull City (2010-2011)

Throughout his entire career Nobby has scored 115 goals in league football.  From 1994-2009 he was also part of the squad for the national football team of Peru, making 95 appearances and scoring 20 goals. He made his international debut at the age of 18.

He is a very popular figure in Peru and is seen as one of the most famous people from Peru and like Prince William, his wedding was shown live on television, though am not sure the amount of people who watched it would have been the same as those who watched Wills marry Kate last year.

What makes Nobby stand out from other Peruvian footballers?

· He is the first Peruvian footballer to play in England when he signed a contract with Newcastle United for £2.5 million.

·He is the first Peruvian footballer to play in the Premier League

· He is the first Peruvian footballer to play in the FA Cup (in 1999 with Newcastle United, where they were beaten 2-0 by Man Utd, but we won’t discuss that!)

So apart from football, what else is there to say about Nolberto Solano? Well his father, Albino was in the Peruvian Navy and his mother was a housewife and raised him and his four brothers and two sisters. He is the youngest member of the family.

As well as being a talented footballer and being the first choice player in most of his teams to take corner and direct free kicks, he is also an accomplished trumpet player and has his own Salsa band which is called the Geordie Latinos.

In 2012, he began his managerial career and is the coach of Newcastle Benfield. From the sounds of it, Nobby likes Newcastle and even goes as far as calling himself an ‘adopted Geordie’.

Santiago Roncagliolo

Santiago Roncagliolo was born in Lima, Peru but spent most of his childhood in Arequipa. Santiago is a writer by profession.

His father, Rafael Roncagliolo is a renowned political analyst who was forced to leave Peru with his family due to the political tensions that arose in 1968 with the military government. During this time they lived in Mexico. After then tension died down, the family returned to Peru where Santiago continued his studied.

Santiago’s started his writing career with children’s books and a short play called "Your friends would never harm you". However, he is most famous for his novel ‘Abril Rojo’ (Red April) which was published in 2006 and helped him become the youngest ever winner of the Premio Alfaguarad de Novela award which is a Spanish-language literary award and one of the most prestigious in the Spanish language. He also became the youngest ever winner of the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize.

What is Red April about? Well it is a story of a serial killer who is terrorising a tiny Andean village. It is set in the year 2000 at the end of the civil war waged against the Sendero Luminoso (Shining Path), led by one of the world’s most ruthless terrorists, Abimael Guzman. But although the war is officially over, the atmosphere of fear and dread still pervades these small towns. Political corruption is both rife and strenuously denied.

Abimael Guzman is also the subject of another book by Santiago called La Cuarta Espada, which unlike Red April has not been translated into English.

As well as being an award winning author, Santiago also writes scripts for television soap operas, is a journalist and has also come into contact with the political world landing himself a job with the Human Rights Commission when some politicians needed someone to bring a human touch to their speeches and reports.

Santiago moved to Barcelona, Spain in 2000 and currently lives there but does spend a lot of time in Peru as well. During his first few years of living in Spain, he had no money and was forced to clean houses in order to pay his rent. But that was before his writing career took off and he became a bestselling author.

What else is interesting about Santiago? Well you might have realised his surname is not particularly Peruvian and there is a very interesting story behind that which is – Santiago’s great grandfather was a smuggler and did not really have a last name so adopted the one of Roncagliolo because he thought it was so complicated that nobody in the courts could spell or write it correctly. He bought land in Peru and raised his children there.