Peruvian poet Enrique Bustamante y Ballivián published 'Junín,' a poetry collection documenting the transformation of the central Andean region by the US-based Cerro de Pasco Corporation. The work starkly portrays the environmental devastation caused by the company's metallurgical complex in La Oroya, particularly the toxic smoke and water contamination. It stands as one of the earliest poetic critiques of large-scale industrial mining in the Andes.

This collection marked a crucial shift in Latin American avant-garde poetry, rejecting the era's typical celebration of urban machines in favor of a critical view of extractive machinery. Martínez-Arias later argued that 'Junín' represents indigenous workers as 'machine-men' subordinated to industrial capital, pioneering an eco-critical poetics. The work established a direct literary lineage for later environmental protest poetry in Latin America, linking the material reality of smelter pollution to poetic form.