El Lazarillo de ciegos caminantes desde Buenos Aires hasta Lima. Lima, 1776.
Charged with reforming the mails between Buenos Aires and Lima, Alonso Carrió de la Vandera is best remembered as the author of the Lazarillo de ciegos caminantes, the “Guide for blind walkers from Buenos Aires to Lima.” This book’s title evokes one of the most famous works of the Spanish Golden Age, Lazarillo de Tormes, a picaresque novel in the which the protagonist begins life as guide to a blind beggar. The Lazarillo de ciegos caminantes, however, was an expression of Peruvian Enlightenment thought about government and society. Its author, Alonso Carrió de la Vandera, was charged with reforming the mail between Buenos Aires and Lima, and his anonymously published book is a combination of official report, travel narrative, and satire. From the foundation of the Viceroyalty of Peru, all commerce and traffic had to go north to Lima before embarking for Spain. The Lazarillo was penned just prior to the establishment of the Viceroyalty of La Plata, which finally allowed transit through the rising city of Buenos Aires. Presented largely as a dialogue between Carrió de la Vandera and Don Calixto Bustamante Carlos Inga, a descendent of Inca royalty, it contains sarcastic attacks on those who oppose the spirit of the Bourbon Reforms, which motivated his mission. Because of its politically sensitive contents it was published anonymously and circulated clandestinely.