In the veiled light of Lima, where the Pacific whispers secrets to the desert and the Andes stand sentinel over restless dreams, Roberto de Olazábal Wismann moves like a quiet pilgrim. Journalist, editor, bookseller, and poet, he has turned his life into a living extension of verse. With the second, expanded edition of La Carretera (The Road), released in June 2026 by his own Barba Negra imprint, Olazábal offers not merely a collection of poems but a luminous map of the human journey—winding, luminous, and unflinchingly honest.
Born in Lima in 1978, he carries the city’s layered soul in his blood: the humid green of its jungles, the mineral silence of its mountains, the salt and melancholy of its coast. A former director of the environmental magazine Georama, he is also the founder and director of Casatomada Librería & Café in San Isidro — a sanctuary where books breathe and conversations bloom like night jasmine. Here, amid wooden shelves and the aroma of fresh coffee, literature ceases to be commodity and becomes communion. Through Barba Negra, he extends this generosity, publishing voices that might otherwise fade into the urban haze. As a publisher, he has championed countless artists, writers, and poets, giving them a platform to reach the world.
I had the privilege of meeting Roberto in Peru, and we worked together on the program JL Interviews TV América. I came to know him not only as a gifted poet but as a dear friend — a man whose warmth matches his talent, and whose dedication to literature is matched only by his generosity toward those who create it.
La Carretera unfolds in three movements, like a symphony of the spirit. The first part glows with earthly wonder. In “Luciérnagas,” the night in Pichanaki pulses with fertile silence: “vida en todo el espacio / sin lugar para la muerte.” Fireflies become emblems of abundance, the jungle a womb alive with song. “Vuelves” summons the eternal return of the beloved, stitching her presence into the black mantle of the cosmos. Mountains guard ancient secrets in “Cerro Baúl,” while fog and crystal rivers haunt “Niebla de Feldkrich.” The poet’s gaze transforms landscape into sacrament — every stone, every wind, heavy with memory and myth.
The middle and later sections descend into the more turbulent waters of love, loss, and self. “Mujer Tormenta” portrays a feminine force both destructive and renewing, rising from warm seas only to return, wings stronger, indifferent to the wreckage left behind. In “La Espalda,” the body itself becomes a site of fleeting worship and inevitable disillusion. “Pueblo Indolente” cuts with journalistic clarity sharpened by poetic blade, condemning the paralysis of fatalism: a people lulled by excuses while the world advances on the feet of the makers. And in “Supernova,” desire explodes in blue intensity — two clear eyes that enslave and elevate, leaving the speaker adrift in irrational bliss.
Olazábal’s language moves with natural grace: precise yet shimmering, rooted in the Peruvian earth yet reaching toward the universal. He writes of squirrels and storms, oxidized nails and new moons, coastal ports where love and poison share the same lips. The road is both literal — curves of asphalt, chalanes riding beside the Huaracane River — and profoundly metaphorical: the path of return, of departure, of ceaseless becoming. Memory and absence intertwine like smoke and salt air. Even in darkness, a stubborn light persists.
Beyond the page, Roberto de Olazábal Wismann is a quiet architect of culture. Casatomada is more than a bookstore; it is a hearth where poets read, thinkers argue, and strangers become fellow travelers. In an age of digital noise and hurried consumption, he reminds us that literature demands slowness, presence, and the courage to walk the road without knowing its end.
La Carretera is no loud proclamation but a whispered invitation. Open its pages, and you step onto asphalt and starlight at once. You feel the fog of Feldkrich on your skin, the fireflies of Pichanaki in your chest. You remember that every journey — through love, through grief, through the indifferent beauty of the world — ultimately circles back to the self, transformed.
If you find yourself in Lima, cross the threshold of Casatomada. Sip slowly. Browse in silence. And if you meet the man with the quiet eyes and steady hands — my dear friend Roberto — know you stand before a rare soul: one who does not merely write the road, but walks it with open heart, leaving verses like breadcrumbs of light for the rest of us to follow.
Written by Joanna Longawa
Photos credits: From the artist’s archieve and Photo cover by Caral Films
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