Or Peruvian writer Mario Vargas Llosa, which At 89, he confessed to a day that he would like to be remembered by writing and work, despite his political and social engagement, which shows in the work.
Vargas Llosa is one of the most important names of Latin American letters and has established himself as one of the leading writers of his generation, to the point that some critics consider that he had an impact and an international audience like none of the Latin American boom.
Came to run for the presidency of Peru
But it was not just for the literature that became known. Early on, he began to engage politically, first as a supporter of Fidel Castro and the Cuban Revolution, then as an advocate of the most conservative, capitalist democracy, even running for the presidency of his country in 1990 for a center-right coalition against Alberto Fujimori.
Politics is a constant theme in his work, which is almost a manifesto of social criticism of social and racial hierarchies.
In Nobel’s acceptance discourse, Mario Vargas Llosa has recognized that it is difficult for a Latin American writer to avoid politics, because the problems are wider than that, they are social, civic and moral, which is why “Latin American literature is impregnated with political concerns” which, in many cases, are more moral concerns, “said the Peruvian author.
“I am basically a writer and I would like to be remembered – if I remembered – by my writing and my work. (…) When I write literature, I think political ideas are secondary. I think literature understands a wider horizon of human experience.”
The Nobel Prize jury justified Vargas Llosa’s choice for being the holder of a writing that “cartography of the structures of power” and a work that reveals “scathing images of resistance, revolt and the failures of the individual.”
The main theme of his books is the struggle for individual freedom, in the oppressive reality of Peru.
The influence of Jean-Paul Sartre’s existentialism
Mario Vargas Llosa began in writing influenced by the existentialism of Jean-Paul Sartre and his fame was soon projected with his second novel, “The City and the Dogs”, edited in 1963, to which other hits such as “The Green House” (1966), the monumental “Conversation in the Cathedral” (1969), “Aunt Julia and the Write” “The Chibo Party” (2000).
“The Green House,” one of his autobiographical inspiration works, reveals influences from William Faulkner, and tells the life of a brothel characters, known precisely as the Green House.
“Cathedral conversation” was originally published in four volumes and addresses some phases of Peruvian society under the dictatorship of Odria in 1950 through the conversation of a minister’s son with a driver in a bar called “La Cathedral”.
This novel is constructed in an original way, using a sophisticated narrative technique that alternates the dialogue between the two men, with scenes of the past, practically without transitions.
In 1981, he published “The War of the End of the World”, about the War of Canudos, a book he dedicated to Brazilian writer Euclides da Cunha, author of “The Sertões”.
Wrote several literary genres
He soon revealed a stylistic versatility that enabled him to write several literary genres.
In addition to novels, which include comedy, mystery, history and politics, Mario Vargas Llosa also wrote theater, rehearsal, memories, literary criticism and journalistic texts, collaborating with newspapers such as Spanish El País, Brazilian Estadão and France Presse agency.
Some of his literary works were adapted to the cinema, such as “Aunt Julia and the Writer”, “Pantaleão and the Visitors” and “The Chibo Party”.
The life of the writer, who spent his childhood in Bolivia
Son of parents who separated after five months, Mario Vargas Llosa spent early childhood in Bolivia, away from his father, who would only know at 10 years.
It was only when his grandfather obtained a political office in Piura, northern Peru, that the writer’s mother decided to return to the country to live in that city.
At 14, he joined as an internal military college in La Perla, an experience that would inspire the novel “The City and the Dogs”.
At 17, he entered the university in Lima, where he studied letters and law, and two years later married Julia Urquidi, sister of her maternal uncle’s wife.
Thanks to a scholarship, he went to study for Spain, where he obtained, at the Complutense University of Madrid, the PhD in Philosophy and Letters, then moved to France, where he lived a few years.
In 1964, he divorced and married again, this time with a cousin, Patrícia Llosa, who would become the mother of her three children.
Always asserted itself as someone against authoritarian currents
His passage from sympathizer from socialism to the center-right wing earned him some criticism and controversy, but Mario Vargas Llosa has always asserted himself as someone against authoritarian currents.
At the time of receiving the Swedish Academy Award, the writer quoted as an example of Democrat’s “curriculum”, his opposition to dictatorships, both from left and Cuba’s case, case -right, case of Augusto Pinochet’s Chile.
The confrontation with OEScritor Gabriel García Márquez
The confrontation with writer Gabriel García Márquez, who came to “de facto ways” in 1976, a date assumed for the term of friendship between them, is not strange to his journey through the political spectrum.
Vargas Llosa, however, has never questioned the value of the Colombian Nobel Prize for literature, eventually publishing his doctoral thesis, “García Márquez – History of a Deicide,” a praise for “one hundred years of loneliness” to its author, and a declaration of love for literature.
“Writing novels is an act of rebellion against reality, against God, against the creation of God which is reality. It is an attempt to correct, change or abolition of the real reality, its replacement with the fictional reality that the novelist creates,” says Vargas Llosa, in the work.
In addition to the Nobel Prize in Literature, Mario Vargas Llosa was distinguished throughout his literary career, with several other awards such as Rómulo Gallegos (1967), Princess of Asturias (1986), Planet (1993), Miguel de Cervantes (1994), Jerusalem (1995), National Book Critics Circle Award, Pen/Nabokov (2002) and Cino del Duca World Award (2008).
Received several degrees of Doctor ‘Honoris Cause’, attributed by universities in Europe, America and Asia
He was also a member of the Peruvian Academy of Languages since 1977, from the Royal Española Academy (RAE) since 1994, and has been part of the Brazilian Academy of Letters since 2014.
In 2023, he joined the French Academy, becoming the first Spanish-speaking writer to enter the institution of immortals, never having written anything in French.
It was also an exception with regard to age, as the centenary institution in charge of keeping Molière’s language only accepts members under 75.
After several years living in Europe, in the early 2000s the writer settled in Madrid, where he had his partner Isabel Preysler. In 2011, the king granted him the title of Marquis, for his “extraordinary contribution (…), universally appreciated to the Literature and the Spanish language”.
Vargas Llosa had had Spanish citizenship since 1993, without ever renouncing Peruvian. This year, he published “Fish in the Water”, in which he combined the experience of the 1990 presidential campaign and his defeat, with childhood memories, the option for residence in Europe and the return to full -time literature.
“I dedicate my silence”, the ultimate novel
In 2024, after he returned to his home country, he published his last novel, “I dedicate my silence to him.”
The work has traditional music as a guiding thread, which reveals the link of unity of society, for an action that takes place in Peru, in the 1990s, under threat of the luminous sender, a guerrilla movement of communist inspiration. The music proves to be a link of union, with the protagonist to cross the country in a course of discovery intertwined with the history of Crioula music.
“If this novel is the singing of Vargas Llosa’s swan, it’s hard to imagine one that was better,” wrote the British newspaper Times Literary Supplement.
In Portugal, Vargas Llosa’s work is edited by Quetzal, who has already published “García Márquez – Story of a Deicide”, “Conversations in Princeton”, “Hard Times”, “The Appeal of the Tribe”, “The Civilization of the Show”, “Five Corns”, “The Discrete Heroes”, “The Dream of Celta”.
For years, Llosa has been part of the LEYA Group Dom Quixote publications, which revealed works such as “Cathedral Conversation”, “Aunt Julia and the Writer”, “The Pranks of the Bad Girl”, “The Pest Tales”, “The Chibo Feast”, “The War War of the World”, “The Speaker”, “Who Killed Palomino Molero?” and “History of Mayta” – without forgetting “two solidions”, which documents the dialogue between García Márquez and Vargas Llosa about Latin American literature in Lima in 1967 with testimonies, interviews and an essay by the Peruvian writer about the Colombian author.
Vargas Llosa’s presence in the Portuguese book market also underwent other publishers such as Europe-América publications (“The City of Dogs”) and Quasi (“Diary of Iraq”, “Israel Palestine”). “The Children’s Boat”, for younger readers, was published by the presence, translated by poet Vasco Gato.
