Spanish is Magaly Solier's first language, but the 22-year-old Peruvian actress and singer has risen to prominence on the international film stage through her portrayal of indigenous Peruvian characters speaking Quechua, an ancient Andean tongue she learned from her grandmother as a little girl.
Quechua is spoken by millions across Peru, Ecuador, Bolivia and Colombia, predominantly by the indigenous inhabitants, and bears no resemblance to Spanish (it also differs slightly between regions). Solier loves it so much that she sang entirely in Quechua on her debut album, Warmi, released earlier this year. While she prefers writing song lyrics in Quechua because she feels she can better articulate what she is trying to say, her desire to learn it as a child was driven by a far more simple reason, she says.
''I wanted to learn it because I really liked how my parents and grandparents spoke to the animals in Quechua and they obeyed, and I too wanted them to obey me,'' she says.
''When you speak to animals in Quechua they understand you, but it's not the same in Spanish, they don't always understand. Quechua is a richer language. Spanish is a bit complicated. I prefer to sing in Quechua because I have better control of it than Spanish. It's very easy to compose music in Quechua.''
Although music had always been her passion, it has had to take a back seat in recent years with Solier's unexpected acting career taking off. Discovered in a park by Peruvian film director Claudia Llosa four years ago in her home province of Ayacucho (although both women might argue they discovered each other), where Solier was selling food with friends to finance a trip to Machu Pichu, Llosa chose her to play the lead character in her 2006 film Madeinusa. For both women it was their first film, launching their careers with the humble tale of a mayor's daughter, Madeinusa, (played by Solier) who is swept off her feet by a stranger in a sleepy Peruvian town. The film garnered international acclaim (while the title, which also reads Made In USA, fits in well with the film's Western feel the name is not uncommon in Peru).
However, it was the pair's second collaboration, this year's La Teta Asustada (The Milk of Sorrow) that attracted the biggest praise, and dealt with heavier themes. Literally translating to ''the scared breast''), the title refers to a condition that, according to Peruvian folklore, is transmitted through breast milk if the mother was the victim of abuse and rape during the violence and terrorism that plagued Peru throughout the 1980s during its civil war. Solier plays Fausta, a young woman who is the product of her mother's rape, who suffers from the the mysterious condition and the overwhelming fear of being violated herself.
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