[1] According to critics, this novel marked the beginning of the current neo-indigenista movement, which presented, for the first time, a reading of indigenous issues from a closer perspective.

[citation needed] The title of the work ('Uku Mayu' in Quechua) alludes to the depth of the Andean rivers, which rise in the top of the Andes.

Education Minister at the time, Luis E. Valcárcel, organized the Culture Museum, an institution that contributed decisively to indigenous studies.

The novel ends when Ernesto leaves Abancay and goes to a ranch owned by "El Viejo", situated in the valley of the Apurimac, awaiting the return of his father.

Offering the story from the perspective of an introverted teenage character, to some extent autobiographical, this narrative of internal examination presents however, from its first line, a distressing reflection on reality, on the nature of the Andean world and its relations with westernized sectors.

Arguedas liked to point out that the action of the settlers, although treated in the novel as magical motivations, foreshadowed the peasant uprisings that occurred in reality a few years later.

Such a project is in extreme conflict: on one hand, on the level of subjectivity, a mythical vision of indigenous descent affirming the unity of the universe and the sharing of all items in a harmonious destiny works; on the other hand, contrary to the above, the experience of immediate reality highlights the deep division in the world and its history of tears and strife, stories that force the protagonist to choose in favor of one side of reality and fight against the other.

On the other hand, in order to capture the double movement of convergence and dispersion, or unity and disharmony, this novel builds a dense and beautiful symbolic system that creatively retells certain indigenous myths and gives them fresh life.

Vargas Llosa says of it: "With the stories Agua (Water) and Los rios profundos (Deep Rivers), after the progress he had made Yawar Fiesta, Arguedas had perfected his style as much as his technical resources, which, without spectacular innovations or experimental daring, still reached full functionality in this novel.

"[4]Vargas Llosa recognizes the emotional impact reading Deep Rivers left him, which unambiguously qualifies it as a masterpiece.

Vargas Llosa also highlights Arguedas mastery of the Spanish language in this novel to reach a style of great artistic effectiveness.

It is a functional and flexible Spanish, which brings to light the different shades of a plurality of issues, people and peculiarities of the world exposed in the work.

But it is also a purifying element of negative spaces, and it is under that belief that Ernesto buries his zumbayllu in the backyard of the toilets, in the same place where older inmates sexually abused a mentally disabled woman.