Set in the village of Puquio (in the Southern Sierra of Peru) it depicts the performance of a bullfight in the Andean style (turupukllay) as part of a celebration called 'yawar punchay'.

[citation needed] The author's effort is appreciated for offering the most authentic version possible of Andean life, without resorting to convention or the paternalism of previous indigenous literature.

The indigenous bullfight is a spectacular event where a bull (which wears a "pampon") must confront one or two hundred "Indians" who can be professional toreros or spontaneous "capeadores".

His desire to remake the story was interrupted by his stay at the El Sexto prison, between 1937 and 1938, therefore he could only re-start writing in the second half of 1940, after attending the Indian Congress of Patzcuaro, in Mexico.

But he must have been disappointed that his novel was not chosen to represent Peru in the international competition, being displaced by the work of an unknown, José Ferrando, entitled 'Panorama hacia el alba' (Panorama toward dawn).

The winner of the international competition was the indigenous novel by Ciro Alegría, 'El mundo es ancho y ajeno' (Broad and Alien is the World), sent on behalf of Chile, where its author was exiled.

Moreover, Yawar Fiesta starts treating an issue that will take its full shape much later: the señores that still oppress the indigenous people have been reclaimed by their culture and in this sense they feel closer to their servants than men of the coast.

"[2]Julio Ramón Ribeyro has said of this novel that the author Traced in it the best possible social and economic sketch of a large village in the Sierra, that has no comparison in our literature for the accuracy of its information and the lucidity of its analysis