text: Biography José Maria Arguedas was born on 18 January 1911 in Andahuaylas, a province in the southern Peruvian Andes. He was born into a well-off family, but his mother died when he was two years old. Because of the absence of his father, a lawyer who traveled frequently, and his bad relationship with his step-mother and step-brother, he comforted himself in the care of the family's Indigenous servants, allowing him to immerse himself in the language and customs of the Andes, which came to form an important part of his personality. He went to primary school in San Juan de Lucana, Puquio, and Abancay, and completed his secondary studies in Ica, Huancayo, and Lima.
  He began studying at National University of San Marcos (Lima) in 1931; there he graduated with a degree in literature. He later took up studies in Ethnology, receiving his degree in 1957 and his doctorate in 1963. Between 1937 and 1938 he was sent to El Sexto Prison for protesting an envoy sent to Peru by Italian dictator Benito Mussolini.
  Arguedas also worked for the Ministry of Education, where he put into practice his interests in preserving and promoting Peruvian culture, in particular traditional Andean music and dance. He was the director of the Casa de la Cultura (1963) and of the National Museum of History (1964–1966).
  In 1968, Arguedas was awarded the Inca Garcilaso de la Vega literary prize,  where he gave his famous speech No soy un aculturado (I am not an acculturated man), which has been described by academic sources as a "powerful" embracing of his mixed heritage.