A bestseller in its time with four published editions, Blanca Sol (1889) was a highly controversial novel when it first appeared. Thought by many to be a roman a clef about a well-known woman of Lima's high society, Mercedes Cabello de Carbonera (1842-1909) distanced herself from this criticism by making substantial changes for the second edition and by including a prologue stating her intentions of writing a realist novel, a social novel, inspired in reality, but not a copy. With a well earned reputation as an outspoken feminist writer and contributor to cultural journals in Peru and abroad...