Walter Paz Quispe Santos, teacher, professor, activist and poet from the department of Puno in Peru, passed away last November.

Walter Quispe studied at the Instituto Universitario de Lingüística Aplicada in the PhD Program in Applied Linguistics, during the 2004-2006 biennium, thanks to a scholarship granted by the Ford Foundation. He continued to be associated with the IULA and the UPF doing doctoral studies on discourse, under the direction of Teun Van Dijk.

Upon returning to Peru, he was appointed as councilor of the Region of Puno, served as manager in the Regional Directorate of Education Puno, and began his career as a teacher in several universities, until the last one, the School of Artistic Formation, in San Carlos de Puno (Peru).

He received several poetry awards and many recognitions for his educational work and for his activism in favor of teaching in Quichua and against political corruption.

His friends at IULA will remember him with great affection.