Bringing the Book to the Masses: The Experience of Populibros in Peru, 1963-65

• In Event: Historicizing Media Production and Information Exchange in Latin America

Abstract

In 1963, Peruvian poet and cultural entrepreneur (later a successful novelist) Manuel Scorza created Populibros, an effort to disseminate important works of literature among the lower classes. At a time when political, social, and cultural changes were affecting Latin American societies (the Cuban revolution, guerrillas, Alliance for Progress, and so forth), access to books remained, for the most part, limited to the urban middle and upper classes. Low literacy levels and the high cost of books kept them away from “the masses.” Scorza envisioned a project to produce cheap books that would be affordable for workers and students. He and his advisors selected Peruvian and foreign authors, both canonical and relatively unknown (including Hemingway, Flaubert, Twain, Poe, Chejov, Vargas Llosa, and dozens of others), issued them in series of five titles at a time and in prints of at least 20,000 copies each, chose a pocket format with colorful covers and cheap paper, and sold them in plazas, schools, and factories, both in big cities and small towns. At a time when the Peruvian population was about ten million, Populibros sold more than one million copies. This paper will explore the connection between the choosing of the book as the main vehicle to disseminate culture among the masses, the material aspects of the project (format, distribution, marketing strategies), the titles and authors selected, and the larger social and cultural context in which the Populibros project took place.

Author

• Carlos A Aguirre, University of Oregon