Before the Spanish conquest there was a rich and varied oral literature in the area of the Inca Empire. Some samples of religious poetry, Quechua narrations and legends have come to us thanks to the fact that they were transcribed by chroniclers such as Cristobal de Molina, Cuzqueno, author of Fables and rites of the Incas (1573); Santa Cruz Pachacuti, Indian evangelized defender of the Spanish Crown, who wrote the Relation of antiquities of this king of the Pirú (1613), where he describes the Quechua religion and philosophy and picks up in the Quechua language some poems of the oral tradition; the Inca Garcilaso de la Vega (1539-1616); and Felipe Guamán Poma de Ayala whose work New chronicle and good government allows to reconstruct much of the history and genealogy of the Incas, as well as numerous aspects of the Peruvian society after the conquest.
Thanks to them and to other 17th century chroniclers, a part of this legacy survived and is a living source for later literature. This work was continued much later by modern and contemporary anthropologists, historians and researchers; in this century, one of the most influential is José María Arguedas, important also for his novelistic work, which underlines the importance of the bilingual and multicultural character of Peru.
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