The story draws on Vallejo's own life experience; for some months, Vallejo had tutored the son of a land owner in the Sierra de Pasco.[1] Vallejo wrote Paco Yunque in April 1931, in response to a request from an editor that he write a children's story.[2] Upon reading the story, the editor rejected it as "too sad"; the work was not published until 1951.[2][3] It later became required reading in Peruvian schools.[4] Juan Acevedo created a widely read comic-book version of the story.[4][5]