Near an ancient wall in Aramu Muru, Peruvian poet John Martínez González is perched in awe of the legend of Auqui Amaru, who saved the holy sun-disc stone from the Spanish conquerors and kept it near a holy lake in Aramu Muru.
Hanan Harawi (which in Quechua means “poetry from above) is an independent publishing house specializing in international poetry based in Lima, Peru. According to its founding editor, the poet John Martínez González, Hanan Harawi seeks to connect audiences to a diverse array of contemporary Latin American poets and writers ‘’without blogs, posts, or web-anthologies. While these methods are good for reaching audiences, they tend to instill conformism. We ought to read books, not PDFs. We publish crafty and unpretentious editions. May we return to the book.”
Hanan Harawi, he adds, “was born from the necessity in Peru to publish contemporary poets from the world over. “The false intimacy provided by the Internet often misleads audiences into believing they know the poetic works of an author (which they read on blogs, websites and other electronic resources). But in order to have truly read a poet, it does not suffice to read two or three online poems: books are needed.”
