In 1951 the University of Texas Press introduced American readers to Garcilaso de la Vega by publishing a translation of his work, La Florida. The Press has now completed the good work with both parts of the Comentarios Reales. In the translation of these two volumes Harold Livermore has performed a notable and definitive work, long needed. There is no question concerning the importance of Garcilaso as one of the outstanding examplars of mestizaje in the colonial period. No one can deny the usefulness of the first part of his comentarios, especially in those chapters relating to the life lived by his Inca ancestors and their Peruvian subjects. Nor can one find anywhere else so compendious a survey of the tumultuous years 1531-1572 in Peru—the most crucial period in all Peruvian history—as is set forth in the second part of the comentarios. Livermore has now offered the whole of this vast work in a convenient English edition, the first in many years. That his is not a critical edition is not surprising; probably nobody in this field is equipped at present to produce one.
Each volume contains an introduction giving most of the facts relevant to the life and literary work of Garcilaso. It is a bit difficult to see why they could not have been consolidated into a lengthier and more ambitious essay at the beginning of the first volume.
The translation is accurate, almost verbatim, yet done in a lucid narrative style. The easy flow of the original is preserved, and nothing has been omitted. Livermore has broken up some of Garcilaso’s longer sentences into a style more suited to us today, and he has introduced more adequate paragraphing where needed. The many long quotations used by Garcilaso from Zárate and others have been set in smaller type, an excellent procedure. The high-grade paper used is a delight to the eye.
The expansion of public interest in Latin American studies is best served today by translations of great books. Livermore has opened up a wide and exotic horizon for the English-speaking world in this fine rendering of a Latin American classic. He has additionally served scholars by his fidelity to the original text. These volumes will shortly be found on the shelves of every academic and municipal library of standing, and will also lie open on the tables of many of the reading public.
