José Carlos Mariátegui was born in Moquegua, Peru, to a poor mestizo family on July 14, 1894. Considered by many to be the father of Latin American Communism, he is celebrated for being the first person to utilize Marxist methods of analysis in order to better understand concrete reality in Peru and for carving a path to revolution based off of these particular historical conditions. As such, he was one of the first Latin American socialists to acknowledge the revolutionary potential of the peasantry and Indigenous peoples. Rather than take a paternalistic or humanitarian position, Mariátegui believed that these overlapping groups needed to be the architects of their own liberation and to do so using their own cultural knowledge, experience, and language.
The Selected Works represents an exciting resurgence of Mariátegui's work in contemporary communist organizing and scholarship, given its specific focus on the necessary conditions for the liberation of the Indigenous peoples of the Americas. Introduced and curated by Christian Noakes, the Selected Works is a powerful collection and new translation of some of Mariátegui's most poignant writings and speeches from short—but brilliant—life.