Mario Vargas Llosa
Encyclopedia
Jorge Mario Pedro Vargas Llosa, 1st Marquis of Vargas Llosa (ˈmaɾjo ˈbaɾɣas ˈʎosa; born March 28, 1936) is a Peru
vian-Spanish
writer, politician, journalist, essayist, and Nobel Prize
laureate. Vargas Llosa is one of Latin America's most significant novelists and essayists, and one of the leading authors of his generation. Some critics consider him to have had a larger international impact and worldwide audience than any other writer of the Latin American Boom
. He was awarded the 2010 Nobel Prize in Literature
"for his cartography of structures of power and his trenchant images of the individual's resistance, revolt, and defeat".
Vargas Llosa rose to fame in the 1960s with novels such as The Time of the Hero
(La ciudad y los perros, literally The City and the Dogs, 1963/1966), The Green House
(La casa verde, 1965/1968), and the monumental Conversation in the Cathedral
(Conversación en la catedral, 1969/1975). He writes prolifically across an array of literary genre
s, including literary criticism
and journalism. His novels include comedies, murder mysteries, historical novels, and political thrillers. Several, such as Captain Pantoja and the Special Service
(1973/1978) and Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter
(1977/1982), have been adapted as feature films.
Many of Vargas Llosa's works are influenced by the writer's perception of Peru
vian society and his own experiences as a native Peruvian. Increasingly, however, he has expanded his range, and tackled themes that arise from other parts of the world. Another change over the course of his career has been a shift from a style and approach associated with literary modernism, to a sometimes playful postmodernism.
Like many Latin American authors, Vargas Llosa has been politically active throughout his career; over the course of his life, he has gradually moved from the political left towards liberalism
or neoliberalism
, a definitively more conservative political position. While he initially supported the Cuban revolutionary government of Fidel Castro
, Vargas Llosa later became disenchanted with the Cuban dictator
and his authoritarian regime. He ran for the Peruvian presidency in 1990 with the center-right Frente Democrático
(FREDEMO) coalition, advocating neoliberal reforms, but lost the election to Alberto Fujimori
. He has subsequently supported moderate conservative candidates until the run-off
to the 2011 presidential election
in which he supported the left-wing Ollanta Humala
rather than his right-wing rival Keiko Fujimori
.
vian provincial city of Arequipa
. He was the only child of Ernesto Vargas Maldonado and Dora Llosa Ureta (the former a radio operator in an aviation company, the latter the daughter of an old criollo
family), who separated a few months before his birth. Shortly after Mario's birth, his father revealed that he was having an affair with a German woman; consequently, Mario has two younger half-brothers: Enrique and Ernesto Vargas.
Vargas Llosa lived with his maternal family in Arequipa until a year after his parents' divorce, when his maternal grandfather was named honorary consul for Peru in Bolivia
. With his mother and her family, Vargas Llosa then moved to Cochabamba
, Bolivia, where he spent the early years of his childhood. His maternal family, the Llosas, were sustained by his grandfather, who managed a cotton farm. As a child, Vargas Llosa was led to believe that his father had died—his mother and her family did not want to explain that his parents had separated. During the government of Peruvian President José Bustamante y Rivero
, Vargas Llosa's maternal grandfather obtained a diplomatic post in the Peruvian coastal city of Piura
and the entire family returned to Peru. While in Piura, Vargas Llosa attended elementary school at the religious academy Colegio Salesiano. In 1946, at the age of ten, he moved to Lima
and met his father for the first time. His parents re-established their relationship and lived in Magdalena del Mar
, a middle-class Lima suburb, during his teenage years. While in Lima, he studied at the Colegio La Salle, a Christian middle school, from 1947 to 1949.
When Vargas Llosa was fourteen, his father sent him to the Leoncio Prado Military Academy
in Lima. A year before his graduation, Vargas Llosa began working as an amateur journalist for local newspapers. He withdrew from the military academy and finished his studies in Piura, where he worked for the local newspaper, La Industria, and witnessed the theatrical performance of his first dramatic work, La huida del Inca.
In 1953, during the government of Manuel A. Odría
, Vargas Llosa enrolled in Lima's National University of San Marcos
, the oldest university of the Americas, to study law and literature. He married Julia Urquidi, his maternal uncle's sister-in-law, in 1955 at the age of 19; she was 10 years older. Vargas Llosa began his literary career in earnest in 1957 with the publication of his first short stories, "The Leaders" ("Los jefes") and "The Grandfather" ("El abuelo"), while working for two Peruvian newspapers. Upon his graduation from the National University of San Marcos in 1958, he received a scholarship to study at the Complutense University of Madrid
in Spain. In 1960, after his scholarship in Madrid had expired, Vargas Llosa moved to France under the impression that he would receive a scholarship to study there; however, upon arriving in Paris, he learned that his scholarship request was denied. Despite Mario and Julia's unexpected financial status, the couple decided to remain in Paris where he began to write prolifically. Their marriage lasted only a few more years, ending in divorce in 1964. A year later, Vargas Llosa married his first cousin, Patricia Llosa, with whom he had three children: Álvaro Vargas Llosa
(born 1966), a writer and editor; Gonzalo (born 1967), a businessman; and Morgana (born 1974), a photographer.
(La ciudad y los perros), was published in 1963. The book is set among a community of cadets in a Lima military school, and the plot is based on the author's own experiences at Lima's Leoncio Prado Military Academy
. This early piece gained wide public attention and immediate success. Its vitality and adept use of sophisticated literary techniques immediately impressed critics, and it won the Premio de la Crítica Española
award. Nevertheless, its sharp criticism of the Peruvian military establishment led to controversy in Peru. Several Peruvian generals attacked the novel, claiming that it was the work of a "degenerate mind" and stating that Vargas Llosa was "paid by Ecuador" to undermine the prestige of the Peruvian Army.
In 1965, Vargas Llosa published his second novel, The Green House
(La casa verde), about a brothel called "The Green House" and how its quasi-mythical presence affects the lives of the characters. The main plot follows Bonifacia, a girl who is about to receive the vows of the church, and her transformation into la Selvatica, the best-known prostitute of "The Green House". The novel was immediately acclaimed, confirming Vargas Llosa as an important voice of Latin American narrative. The Green House won the first edition of the Rómulo Gallegos International Novel Prize
in 1967, contending with works by veteran Uruguay
an writer Juan Carlos Onetti
and by Gabriel García Márquez
. This novel alone accumulated enough awards to place the author among the leading figures of the Latin American Boom
. Some critics still consider The Green House to be Vargas Llosa's finest and most important achievement. Indeed, Latin American literary critic Gerald Martin
suggests that The Green House is "one of the greatest novels to have emerged from Latin America".
Vargas Llosa's third novel, Conversation in the Cathedral
(Conversación en la catedral), was published in 1969, when he was 33. This ambitious narrative is the story of Santiago Zavala, the son of a government minister, and Ambrosio, his chauffeur. A random meeting at a dog pound leads the pair to a riveting conversation at a nearby bar known as "The Cathedral". During the encounter, Zavala searches for the truth about his father's role in the murder of a notorious Peruvian underworld figure, shedding light on the workings of a dictatorship along the way. Unfortunately for Zavala, his quest results in a dead end with no answers and no sign of a better future. The novel attacks the dictatorial government of Odría by showing how a dictatorship controls and destroys lives. The persistent theme of hopelessness makes Conversation in the Cathedral Vargas Llosa's most bitter novel.
-winning Colombian author Gabriel García Márquez, they have not spoken to each other in more than 30 years. In 1976, Vargas Llosa punched García Márquez in the face in Mexico City
at the Palacio de Bellas Artes
, ending the friendship. Neither writer has publicly stated the underlying reasons for the quarrel. A photograph of García Márquez sporting a black eye was published in 2007, reigniting public interest in the feud. Despite the decades of silence, in 2007, Vargas Llosa agreed to allow part of his book to be used as the introduction to a 40th-anniversary edition of García Márquez's One Hundred Years of Solitude
, which was re-released in Spain and throughout Latin America that year. Historia de un Deicidio was also reissued in that year, as part of Vargas Llosa's complete works.
Following the monumental work Conversation in the Cathedral, Vargas Llosa's output shifted away from more serious themes such as politics and problems with society. Latin American literary scholar Raymond L. Williams describes this phase in his writing career as "the discovery of humor". His first attempt at a satirical novel was Captain Pantoja and the Special Service (Pantaleón y las visitadoras), published in 1973. This short, comic novel offers vignettes of dialogues and documents about the Peruvian armed forces and a corps of prostitutes assigned to visit military outposts in remote jungle areas. These plot elements are similar to Vargas Llosa's earlier novel The Green House, but in a different form. As such, Captain Pantoja and the Special Service is essentially a parody
of both The Green House and the literary approach that novel represents. Vargas Llosa's motivation to write the novel came from actually witnessing prostitutes being hired by the Peruvian Army and brought to serve soldiers in the jungle.
From 1974 to 1987, Vargas Llosa focused on his writing, but also took the time to pursue other endeavors. In 1975, he co-directed an unsuccessful motion-picture adaptation of his novel, Captain Pantoja and the Secret Service. Following this he was elected President of the International PEN
, a worldwide association of writers. During this time, Vargas Llosa constantly traveled to speak at conferences organized by internationally renowned institutions, such as the Hebrew University of Jerusalem
and the University of Cambridge
, where he was an Overseas Fellow of Churchill College in 1977–78.
In 1977, Vargas Llosa was elected as a member of the Peruvian Academy of Language
, a membership he still holds today. That year, he also published Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter
(La tía Julia y el escribidor), based in part on his marriage to his first wife, Julia Urquidi, to whom he dedicated the novel. She later wrote a memoir, Lo que Varguitas no dijo (What Little Vargas Didn't Say), in which she gives her personal account of their relationship. She states that Vargas Llosa's account exaggerates many negative points in their courtship and marriage while minimizing her role of assisting his literary career. Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter is considered one of the most striking examples of how the language and imagery of popular culture can be used in literature. The novel was adapted in 1990 into a Hollywood feature film, Tune in Tomorrow
.
(La guerra del fin del mundo), was published in 1981 and was his first attempt at a historical novel
. This work initiated a radical change in Vargas Llosa's style towards themes such as messianism
and irrational human behaviour. It recreates the War of Canudos
, an incident in 19th-century Brazil
in which an armed millenarian cult held off a siege by the national army for months. As in Vargas Llosa's earliest work, this novel carries a sober and serious theme, and its tone is dark. Vargas Llosa's bold exploration of humanity's propensity to idealize violence, and his account of a man-made catastrophe brought on by fanaticism, earned the novel substantial recognition.
Because of the book's ambition and execution, critics have argued that this is one of Vargas Llosa's greatest literary pieces.
Even though the novel has been acclaimed in Brazil, it was initially poorly received because a foreigner was writing about a Brazilian theme. The book was also criticized as revolutionary and anti-socialist. Vargas Llosa claims that this book is his favorite and was his most difficult accomplishment.
After completing The War of the End of the World, Vargas Llosa began to write novels that were significantly shorter than many of his earlier books. In 1983, he finished The Real Life of Alejandro Mayta (Historia de Mayta, 1984). The novel focuses on a leftist insurrection that took place on May 29, 1962 in the Andean
city of Jauja
. Later the same year, during the Sendero Luminoso uprising, Vargas Llosa was asked by the Peruvian President Fernando Belaúnde Terry
to join the Investigatory Commission, a task force to inquire into the horrific massacre of eight journalists at the hands of the villagers of Uchuraccay
. The Commission's main purpose was to investigate the murders in order to provide information regarding the incident to the public. Following his involvement with the Investigatory Commission, Vargas Llosa published a series of articles to defend his position in the affair. In 1986, he completed his next novel, Who Killed Palomino Molero (¿Quién mató a Palomino Molero?), which he began writing shortly after the end of the Uchuraccay investigation. Though the plot of this mystery novel is similar to the tragic events at Uchuraccay, literary critic Roy Boland points out that it was not an attempt to reconstruct the murders, but rather a "literary exorcism" of Vargas Llosa's own experiences during the commission. The experience also inspired one of Vargas Llosa's later novels, Death in the Andes
(Lituma en los Andes), originally published in 1993 in Barcelona.
It would be almost 20 years before Vargas Llosa wrote another major work: The Feast of the Goat
(La fiesta del chivo), a political thriller
, was published in 2000 (and in English in 2001). According to Williams, it is Vargas Llosa's most complete and most ambitious novel since The War of the End of the World. Critic Sabine Koellmann sees it in the line of his earlier novels such as "Conversación en la catedral" depicting the effects of authoritarianism, violence and the abuse of power on the individual. Based on the dictatorship of Rafael Trujillo, who governed the Dominican Republic
from 1930 until his assassination in 1961, the novel has three main strands: one concerns Urania Cabral, the daughter of a former politician and Trujillo loyalist, who returns for the first time since leaving the Dominican Republic after Trujillo's assassination 30 years earlier; the second concentrates on the assassination itself, the conspirators who carry it out, and its consequences; and the third and final strand deals with Trujillo himself in scenes from the end of his regime. The book quickly received positive reviews in Spain and Latin America, and has had a significant impact in Latin America, being regarded as one of Vargas Llosa's best works.
In 2006, Vargas Llosa wrote The Bad Girl
(Travesuras de la niña mala), which journalist Kathryn Harrison argues is a rewrite (rather than simply a recycling) of Gustave Flaubert
's Madame Bovary
(1856). In Vargas Llosa's version, the plot relates the decades-long obsession of its narrator, a Peruvian expatriate in Paris, with a woman with whom he first fell in love when both were teenagers.
government of Fidel Castro
. He studied Marxism
in depth as a university student and was later persuaded by communist
ideals after the success of the Cuban Revolution. Gradually, Vargas Llosa came to believe that Cuban socialism
was incompatible with what he considered to be general liberties and freedoms. The official rupture between the writer and the policies of the Cuban government occurred with the so-called 'Padilla Affair', when the Castro regime imprisoned the poet Heberto Padilla
for a month in 1971. Vargas Llosa, along with other intellectuals of the time, wrote to Castro protesting the Cuban political system and its imprisonment of the artist. Vargas Llosa has identified himself with liberalism rather than extreme left-wing political ideologies ever since. Since he relinquished his earlier leftism, he has opposed both left- and right-wing authoritarian regimes.
With his appointment to the Investigatory Commission in 1983 he experienced what literary critic Jean Franco
calls "the most uncomfortable event in [his] political career". Unfortunately for Vargas Llosa, his involvement with the Investigatory Commission led to immediate negative reactions and defamation from the Peruvian press; many suggested that the massacre was a conspiracy to keep the journalists from reporting the presence of government paramilitary forces in Uchuraccay. The commission concluded that it was the indigenous villagers who had been responsible for the killings; for Vargas Llosa the incident showed "how vulnerable democracy is in Latin America and how easily it dies under dictatorships of the right and left". These conclusions, and Vargas Llosa personally, came under intense criticism: anthropologist Enrique Mayer, for instance, accused him of "paternalism", while fellow anthropologist Carlos Iván Degregori criticized him for his ignorance of the Andean world. Vargas Llosa was accused of actively colluding in a government cover-up of army involvement in the massacre. US Latin American literature
scholar Misha Kokotovic summarizes that the novelist was charged with seeing "indigenous cultures as a 'primitive' obstacle to the full realization of his Western model of modernity". Shocked both by the atrocity itself and then by the reaction his report had provoked, Vargas Llosa responded that his critics were apparently more concerned with his report than with the hundreds of peasants who would later die at the hands of the Sendero Luminoso guerrilla organization.
Over the course of the decade, Vargas Llosa became known for his staunch neoliberal views. In 1987, he helped form and soon became a leader of the Movimiento Libertad
. The following year his party entered a coalition with the parties of Peru's two principal conservative politicians at the time, ex-president Fernando Belaúnde Terry
(of the Popular Action party) and Luis Bedoya Reyes
(of the Partido Popular Cristiano), to form the tripartite center-right coalition known as Frente Democrático
(FREDEMO). He ran for the presidency of Peru in 1990 as the candidate of the FREDEMO coalition. He proposed a drastic economic austerity
program that frightened most of the country's poor; this program emphasized the need for privatization, a market economy, free trade, and most importantly, the dissemination of private property. Although he won the first round with 34% of the vote, Vargas Llosa was defeated by a then-unknown agricultural engineer, Alberto Fujimori
, in the subsequent run-off. Vargas Llosa included an account of his run for the presidency in the memoir A Fish in the Water
(El pez en el agua, 1993). Since his political defeat, he has focused mainly on his writing, with only occasional political involvement.
A month after losing the election, at the invitation of Octavio Paz
, Vargas Llosa attended a conference in Mexico entitled, "The 20th Century: The Experience of Freedom". Focused on the collapse of communist rule in central and eastern Europe, it was broadcast on Mexican television. In an address to the conference, Vargas Llosa condemned the Mexican system of power based on the rule of the Institutional Revolutionary Party
, which had been in power for 61 years. He declared, "Mexico is the perfect dictatorship. The perfect dictatorship is not communism, not the USSR, not Fidel Castro; the perfect dictatorship is Mexico. Because it is a camouflaged dictatorship."
Vargas Llosa has mainly lived in Madrid since the 1990s, but spends roughly three months of the year in Peru with his extended family. He also frequently visits London where he occasionally spends long periods. Vargas Llosa acquired Spanish citizenship in 1993, though he still holds Peruvian nationality
. The writer often reiterates his love for both countries. In his Nobel speech he observed: "I carry Peru deep inside me because that is where I was born, grew up, was formed, and lived those experiences of childhood and youth that shaped my personality and forged my calling". He then added: "I love Spain as much as Peru, and my debt to her is as great as my gratitude. If not for Spain, I never would have reached this podium or become a known writer".
In 1994 he was elected a member of the Real Academia Española
(Royal Spanish Academy) and has been involved in the country's political arena. In February 2008 he stopped supporting the People's Party
in favor of the recently created Union, Progress and Democracy
, claiming that certain conservative views held by the former party are at odds with his classical liberal beliefs. His political ideologies appear in the book Política razonable, written with Fernando Savater
, Rosa Díez
, Álvaro Pombo
, Albert Boadella
and Carlos Martínez Gorriarán
. He continues to write, both journalism and fiction, and to travel extensively. He has also taught as a visiting professor at a number of prominent universities.
On November 18, 2010, Vargas Llosa received the honorary degree Degree of Letters from the City College of New York of the City University of New York, where he also delivered the President's Lecture.
On 4 February 2011, Vargas Llosa was raised into the Spanish nobility
by King Juan Carlos I
with the hereditary title of Marqués de Vargas Llosa (English
: Marquis of Vargas Llosa).
In April 2011, the writer took part in the Peruvian general election, 2011
by saying he was going to vote for Alejandro Toledo
(peruvian former president 2001-2006). After cast his vote, he said his country should stay in the path of legality and freedom.
As for hobbies, Vargas Llosa is very fond of football, and is a renowned supporter of Universitario de Deportes
. The writer himself has confessed in his book A Fish in the Water
since childhood he has been a fan of the 'cream colored' team from Peru
, which was first seen in the field one day in 1946 when he was only 10 years old. In February 2011, Vargas Llosa was awarded with an honorary life membership of this football club, in a ceremony which took place in the Monumental Stadium of Lima
.
. The protagonist, Santiago, rebels against the suffocating dictatorship by participating in the subversive activities of leftist political groups. In addition to themes such as corruption and oppression, Vargas Llosa's second novel, The Green House, explores "a denunciation of Peru's basic institutions", dealing with issues of abuse and exploitation of the workers in the brothel by corrupt military officers.
Many of Vargas Llosa's earlier novels were set in Peru, while in more recent work he has expanded to other regions of Latin America, such as Brazil and the Dominican Republic. His responsibilities as a writer and lecturer have allowed him to travel frequently and led to settings for his novels in regions outside of Peru. The War of the End of the World was his first major work set outside Peru. Though the plot deals with historical events of the Canudos
revolt against the Brazilian government, the novel is not based directly on historical fact; rather, its main inspiration is the non-fiction account of those events published by Brazilian writer Euclides da Cunha
in 1902. The Feast of the Goat, based on the dictatorship of Rafael Trujillo, takes place in the Dominican Republic
; in preparation for this novel, Vargas Llosa undertook a comprehensive study of Dominican history. The novel was characteristically realist
, and Vargas Llosa underscores that he "respected the basic facts, [. . .] I have not exaggerated", but at the same time he points out "It's a novel, not a history book, so I took many, many liberties."
One of Vargas Llosa's more recent novels, The Way to Paradise (El paraíso en la otra esquina), is set largely in France and Tahiti
. Based on the biography of former social reformer Flora Tristan
, it demonstrates how Flora and Paul Gauguin
were unable to find paradise, but were still able to inspire followers to keep working towards a socialist utopia
. Unfortunately, Vargas Llosa was not as successful in transforming these historical figures into fiction. Some critics, such as Barbara Mujica, argue that The Way to Paradise lacks the "audacity, energy, political vision, and narrative genius" that was present in his previous works.
(El hablador) appear to follow a postmodernist mode of writing. These novels have a much lighter, farcical
, and comic tone, characteristics of postmodernism. Comparing two of Vargas Llosa's novels, The Green House and Captain Pantoja and the Special Service, Booker discusses the contrast between modernism and postmodernism found in the writer's works: while both novels explore the theme of prostitution as well as the workings of the Peruvian military, Booker points out that the former is gravely serious whereas the latter is ridiculously comic.
. Vargas Llosa also sometimes uses this technique as a means of shifting location by weaving together two concurrent conversations happening in different places. This technique is a staple of his repertoire, which he began using near the end of his first novel, The Time of the Hero. However, he does not use interlacing dialogues in the same way in all of his novels. For example, in The Green House the technique is used in a serious fashion to achieve a sober tone and to focus on the interrelatedness of important events separated in time or space. In contrast, Captain Pantoja and the Special Service employs this strategy for comic effects and uses simpler spatial shifts. This device is similar to both Virginia Woolf
's mixing of different characters' soliloquies and Gustave Flaubert's counterpoint
technique in which he blends together conversation with other events, such as speeches.
, Carlos Oquendo de Amat
, and César Moro
. As a young writer, he looked to these revolutionary novelists in search of new narrative structures and techniques in order to delineate a more contemporary, multifaceted experience of urban Peru. He was looking for a style different from the traditional descriptions of land and rural life made famous by Peru's foremost novelist at the time, José María Arguedas
. Vargas Llosa wrote of Arguedas's work that it was "an example of old-fashioned regionalism that had already exhausted its imaginary possibilities". Although he did not share Arguedas's passion for indigenous reality, Vargas Llosa admired and respected the novelist for his contributions to Peruvian literature. Indeed, he has published a book-length study on his work, La utopía arcaica (1996).
Rather than restrict himself to Peruvian literature, Vargas Llosa also looked abroad for literary inspiration. Two French figures, existentialist Jean-Paul Sartre
and novelist Gustave Flaubert
, influenced both his technique and style. Sartre's influence is most prevalent in Vargas Llosa's extensive use of conversation. The epigraph of The Time of the Hero, his first novel, is also taken directly from Sartre's work. Flaubert's artistic independence—his novels' disregard of reality and morals—has always been admired by Vargas Llosa, who wrote a book-length study of Flaubert's aesthetics
, The Perpetual Orgy. In his analysis of Flaubert, Vargas Llosa questions the revolutionary power of literature in a political setting; this is in contrast to his earlier view that "literature is an act of rebellion", thus marking a transition in Vargas Llosa's aesthetic beliefs.
One of Vargas Llosa's favourite novelists, and arguably the most influential on his writing career, is the American William Faulkner
. Vargas Llosa considers Faulkner "the writer who perfected the methods of the modern novel". Both writers' styles include intricate changes in time and narration. In The Time of the Hero, for example, aspects of Vargas Llosa's plot, his main character's development and his use of narrative time are influenced by his favourite Faulkner novel, Light in August
.
In addition to the studies of Arguedas and Flaubert, Vargas Llosa has written literary criticisms of other authors that he has admired, such as García Márquez, Albert Camus
, Ernest Hemingway
, and Jean-Paul Sartre
. The main goals of his non-fiction works are to acknowledge the influence of these authors on his writing, and to recognize a connection between himself and the other writers; critic Sara Castro-Klarén argues that he offers little systematic analysis of these authors' literary techniques. In The Perpetual Orgy, for example, he discusses the relationship between his own aesthetics and Flaubert's, rather than focusing on Flaubert's alone.
, Julio Cortázar
, Jorge Luis Borges
, Gabriel García Márquez
and Carlos Fuentes
. In his book The New Novel in Latin America (La Nueva Novela), Fuentes offers an in-depth literary criticism of the positive influence Vargas Llosa's work has had on Latin American literature. Indeed, for the literary critic Gerald Martin
, writing in 1987, Vargas Llosa was "perhaps the most successful [. . . and] certainly the most controversial Latin American novelist of the past twenty-five years".
Most of Vargas Llosa's narratives have been translated into multiple languages, marking his international critical success. Vargas Llosa is also noted for his substantial contribution to journalism, an accomplishment characteristic of few other Latin American writers. He is recognized among those who have most consciously promoted literature in general, and more specifically the novel itself, as avenues for meaningful commentary about life. During his career, he has written more than a dozen novels and many other books and stories, and, for decades, he has been a voice for Latin American literature. He has won numerous awards for his writing, from the 1959 Premio Leopoldo Alas and the 1962 Premio Biblioteca Breve to the 1993 Premio Planeta
(for Death in the Andes) and the Jerusalem Prize
in 1995. The literary critic Harold Bloom
has included his novel The War of the End of the World
in his list of essential literary works in the Western Canon
. An important distinction he has received is the 1994 Miguel de Cervantes Prize
, considered the most important accolade in Spanish-language literature and awarded to authors whose "work has contributed to enrich, in a notable way, the literary patrimony of the Spanish language". Vargas Llosa also received the 2005 Irving Kristol Award
from the American Enterprise Institute
and was the 2008 recipient of the Harold and Ethel L. Stellfox Visiting Scholar and Writers Award at Dickinson College
.
A number of Vargas Llosa's works have been adapted for the screen, including The Time of the Hero and Captain Pantoja and the Special Service (both by the Peruvian director Francisco Lombardi) and The Feast of the Goat (by Vargas Llosa's cousin, Luis Llosa
). Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter
was turned into the English-language film, Tune in Tomorrow
. The Feast of the Goat has also been adapted as a theatrical play by Jorge Alí Triana, a Colombian playwright and director.
Vargas Llosa's essays and journalism have been collected as Contra viento y marea, issued in three volumes (1983, 1986, and 1990). A selection has been edited by John King and translated and published as Making Waves.
2003 - "The Language of Passion"
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Peru
Peru , officially the Republic of Peru , is a country in western South America. It is bordered on the north by Ecuador and Colombia, on the east by Brazil, on the southeast by Bolivia, on the south by Chile, and on the west by the Pacific Ocean....
vian-Spanish
Spain
Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...
writer, politician, journalist, essayist, and Nobel Prize
Nobel Prize
The Nobel Prizes are annual international awards bestowed by Scandinavian committees in recognition of cultural and scientific advances. The will of the Swedish chemist Alfred Nobel, the inventor of dynamite, established the prizes in 1895...
laureate. Vargas Llosa is one of Latin America's most significant novelists and essayists, and one of the leading authors of his generation. Some critics consider him to have had a larger international impact and worldwide audience than any other writer of the Latin American Boom
Latin American Boom
The Latin American Boom was a literary movement of the 1960s and 1970s when the work of a group of relatively young Latin American novelists became widely circulated in Europe and throughout the world...
. He was awarded the 2010 Nobel Prize in Literature
Nobel Prize in Literature
Since 1901, the Nobel Prize in Literature has been awarded annually to an author from any country who has, in the words from the will of Alfred Nobel, produced "in the field of literature the most outstanding work in an ideal direction"...
"for his cartography of structures of power and his trenchant images of the individual's resistance, revolt, and defeat".
Vargas Llosa rose to fame in the 1960s with novels such as The Time of the Hero
The Time of the Hero
The Time of the Hero was the first novel published by Peruvian writer Mario Vargas Llosa. Set among a community of cadets in a Lima military school , it is notable for its experimental and complex employment of multiple perspectives...
(La ciudad y los perros, literally The City and the Dogs, 1963/1966), The Green House
The Green House
The Green House is the second novel by the Peruvian writer Mario Vargas Llosa, published in 1966. The novel covers more than forty years...
(La casa verde, 1965/1968), and the monumental Conversation in the Cathedral
Conversation in the Cathedral
Conversation in the Cathedral is a 1969 novel by Peruvian writer and essayist Mario Vargas Llosa, recognized as one of his major works. It is a portrayal of Peru under the dictatorship of Manuel A. Odría in the 1950s, and deals with the lives of characters from different social strata...
(Conversación en la catedral, 1969/1975). He writes prolifically across an array of literary genre
Literary genre
A literary genre is a category of literary composition. Genres may be determined by literary technique, tone, content, or even length. Genre should not be confused with age category, by which literature may be classified as either adult, young-adult, or children's. They also must not be confused...
s, including literary criticism
Literary criticism
Literary criticism is the study, evaluation, and interpretation of literature. Modern literary criticism is often informed by literary theory, which is the philosophical discussion of its methods and goals...
and journalism. His novels include comedies, murder mysteries, historical novels, and political thrillers. Several, such as Captain Pantoja and the Special Service
Captain Pantoja and the Special Service
Captain Pantoja and the Special Service is a relatively short comedic novel by acclaimed Peruvian writer Mario Vargas Llosa....
(1973/1978) and Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter
Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter
Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter is the fifth novel by Mario Vargas Llosa. It was published by Editorial Seix Barral, S.A., Spain, in 1977. Set in Peru during the 1950s, it is the story of an 18 year old student who falls for a 32 year old divorcee...
(1977/1982), have been adapted as feature films.
Many of Vargas Llosa's works are influenced by the writer's perception of Peru
Peru
Peru , officially the Republic of Peru , is a country in western South America. It is bordered on the north by Ecuador and Colombia, on the east by Brazil, on the southeast by Bolivia, on the south by Chile, and on the west by the Pacific Ocean....
vian society and his own experiences as a native Peruvian. Increasingly, however, he has expanded his range, and tackled themes that arise from other parts of the world. Another change over the course of his career has been a shift from a style and approach associated with literary modernism, to a sometimes playful postmodernism.
Like many Latin American authors, Vargas Llosa has been politically active throughout his career; over the course of his life, he has gradually moved from the political left towards liberalism
Liberalism
Liberalism is the belief in the importance of liberty and equal rights. Liberals espouse a wide array of views depending on their understanding of these principles, but generally, liberals support ideas such as constitutionalism, liberal democracy, free and fair elections, human rights,...
or neoliberalism
Neoliberalism
Neoliberalism is a market-driven approach to economic and social policy based on neoclassical theories of economics that emphasizes the efficiency of private enterprise, liberalized trade and relatively open markets, and therefore seeks to maximize the role of the private sector in determining the...
, a definitively more conservative political position. While he initially supported the Cuban revolutionary government of Fidel Castro
Fidel Castro
Fidel Alejandro Castro Ruz is a Cuban revolutionary and politician, having held the position of Prime Minister of Cuba from 1959 to 1976, and then President from 1976 to 2008. He also served as the First Secretary of the Communist Party of Cuba from the party's foundation in 1961 until 2011...
, Vargas Llosa later became disenchanted with the Cuban dictator
Dictator
A dictator is a ruler who assumes sole and absolute power but without hereditary ascension such as an absolute monarch. When other states call the head of state of a particular state a dictator, that state is called a dictatorship...
and his authoritarian regime. He ran for the Peruvian presidency in 1990 with the center-right Frente Democrático
Democratic Front (Peru)
Democratic Front , also known as FREDEMO, was a center-right liberal and conservative political alliance in Peru founded in 1988 by Liberty Movement, Popular Action and Christian People's Party. FREDEMO contested the 1989 municipal elections and the 1990 presidential elections ....
(FREDEMO) coalition, advocating neoliberal reforms, but lost the election to Alberto Fujimori
Alberto Fujimori
Alberto Fujimori Fujimori served as President of Peru from 28 July 1990 to 17 November 2000. A controversial figure, Fujimori has been credited with the creation of Fujimorism, uprooting terrorism in Peru and restoring its macroeconomic stability, though his methods have drawn charges of...
. He has subsequently supported moderate conservative candidates until the run-off
Two-round system
The two-round system is a voting system used to elect a single winner where the voter casts a single vote for their chosen candidate...
to the 2011 presidential election
Peruvian general election, 2011
The Peruvian general election, 2011 took place on 10 April 2011. Since no candidate received more than half of all valid votes, a second round was necessary to determine the winner. This second round took place on 5 June and determined the successor of Alan García, as well as 130 members of the...
in which he supported the left-wing Ollanta Humala
Ollanta Humala
Ollanta Moisés Humala Tasso is a Peruvian politician and the President of Peru. Humala, who previously served as an army officer, lost the presidential election in 2006 but won the 2011 presidential election in a run-off vote...
rather than his right-wing rival Keiko Fujimori
Keiko Fujimori
Keiko Sofía Fujimori Higuchi is a Peruvian Fujimorista politician, daughter of former Peruvian President Alberto Fujimori and Susana Higuchi. She served as First Lady, from 1994 to 2000, after her parents divorced, becoming the youngest First Lady in the history of the Americas...
.
Early life and family
Mario Vargas Llosa was born to a middle-class family on March 28, 1936, in the PeruPeru
Peru , officially the Republic of Peru , is a country in western South America. It is bordered on the north by Ecuador and Colombia, on the east by Brazil, on the southeast by Bolivia, on the south by Chile, and on the west by the Pacific Ocean....
vian provincial city of Arequipa
Arequipa
Arequipa is the capital city of the Arequipa Region in southern Peru. With a population of 836,859 it is the second most populous city of the country...
. He was the only child of Ernesto Vargas Maldonado and Dora Llosa Ureta (the former a radio operator in an aviation company, the latter the daughter of an old criollo
Criollo (people)
The Criollo class ranked below that of the Iberian Peninsulares, the high-born permanent residence colonists born in Spain. But Criollos were higher status/rank than all other castes—people of mixed descent, Amerindians, and enslaved Africans...
family), who separated a few months before his birth. Shortly after Mario's birth, his father revealed that he was having an affair with a German woman; consequently, Mario has two younger half-brothers: Enrique and Ernesto Vargas.
Vargas Llosa lived with his maternal family in Arequipa until a year after his parents' divorce, when his maternal grandfather was named honorary consul for Peru in Bolivia
Bolivia
Bolivia officially known as Plurinational State of Bolivia , is a landlocked country in central South America. It is the poorest country in South America...
. With his mother and her family, Vargas Llosa then moved to Cochabamba
Cochabamba
Cochabamba is a city in central Bolivia, located in a valley bearing the same name in the Andes mountain range. It is the capital of the Cochabamba Department and is the fourth largest city in Bolivia with an urban population of 608,276 and a metropolitan population of more than 1,000,000 people...
, Bolivia, where he spent the early years of his childhood. His maternal family, the Llosas, were sustained by his grandfather, who managed a cotton farm. As a child, Vargas Llosa was led to believe that his father had died—his mother and her family did not want to explain that his parents had separated. During the government of Peruvian President José Bustamante y Rivero
José Bustamante y Rivero
José Luis Bustamante y Rivero was a lawyer, writer, politician, diplomat, President of Peru from 1945 to 1948 and President of the International Court of Justice in The Hague from 1967 to 1969.- Early years :...
, Vargas Llosa's maternal grandfather obtained a diplomatic post in the Peruvian coastal city of Piura
Piura
Piura is a city in northwestern Peru. It is the capital of the Piura Region and the Piura Province. The population is 377,496.It was here that Spanish Conqueror Francisco Pizarro founded the third Spanish city in South America and first in Peru, San Miguel de Piura, in July 1532...
and the entire family returned to Peru. While in Piura, Vargas Llosa attended elementary school at the religious academy Colegio Salesiano. In 1946, at the age of ten, he moved to Lima
Lima
Lima is the capital and the largest city of Peru. It is located in the valleys of the Chillón, Rímac and Lurín rivers, in the central part of the country, on a desert coast overlooking the Pacific Ocean. Together with the seaport of Callao, it forms a contiguous urban area known as the Lima...
and met his father for the first time. His parents re-established their relationship and lived in Magdalena del Mar
Magdalena del Mar
Magdalena del Mar, commonly known simply as Magdalena, is a seaside district of the Lima Province in Peru and one of the districts that comprise the city of Lima. Its current mayor is Francis James Allison Oyague...
, a middle-class Lima suburb, during his teenage years. While in Lima, he studied at the Colegio La Salle, a Christian middle school, from 1947 to 1949.
When Vargas Llosa was fourteen, his father sent him to the Leoncio Prado Military Academy
Leoncio Prado Military Academy
The Leoncio Prado Military Academy is a Peruvian educational institution founded on 27 August 1943 by President of the Republic Manuel Prado Ugarteche and Secretary of Education Elías La Rosa ....
in Lima. A year before his graduation, Vargas Llosa began working as an amateur journalist for local newspapers. He withdrew from the military academy and finished his studies in Piura, where he worked for the local newspaper, La Industria, and witnessed the theatrical performance of his first dramatic work, La huida del Inca.
In 1953, during the government of Manuel A. Odría
Manuel A. Odría
Manuel Arturo Odría Amoretti was the President of Peru from 1948 to 1956.Manuel Odría was born in 1897 in Tarma, a city in the central Andes just east of Lima. He graduated first in his class from the Chorillos Military Academy in 1915. He joined the army and as a lieutenant-colonel was a war...
, Vargas Llosa enrolled in Lima's National University of San Marcos
National University of San Marcos
The National University of San Marcos is the most important and respected higher-education institution in Peru. Its main campus, the University City, is located in Lima...
, the oldest university of the Americas, to study law and literature. He married Julia Urquidi, his maternal uncle's sister-in-law, in 1955 at the age of 19; she was 10 years older. Vargas Llosa began his literary career in earnest in 1957 with the publication of his first short stories, "The Leaders" ("Los jefes") and "The Grandfather" ("El abuelo"), while working for two Peruvian newspapers. Upon his graduation from the National University of San Marcos in 1958, he received a scholarship to study at the Complutense University of Madrid
Complutense University of Madrid
The Complutense University of Madrid is a university in Madrid, and one of the oldest universities in the world. It is located on a sprawling campus that occupies the entirety of the Ciudad Universitaria district of Madrid, with annexes in the district of Somosaguas in the neighboring city of...
in Spain. In 1960, after his scholarship in Madrid had expired, Vargas Llosa moved to France under the impression that he would receive a scholarship to study there; however, upon arriving in Paris, he learned that his scholarship request was denied. Despite Mario and Julia's unexpected financial status, the couple decided to remain in Paris where he began to write prolifically. Their marriage lasted only a few more years, ending in divorce in 1964. A year later, Vargas Llosa married his first cousin, Patricia Llosa, with whom he had three children: Álvaro Vargas Llosa
Álvaro Vargas Llosa
Álvaro Vargas Llosa is a Peruvian writer and political commentator on international affairs with emphasis on Latin America. He is also the writer and presenter of a documentary series for National Geographic on contemporary Latin American history that is being shown around the world.Vargas Llosa...
(born 1966), a writer and editor; Gonzalo (born 1967), a businessman; and Morgana (born 1974), a photographer.
Beginning and first major works
Vargas Llosa's first novel, The Time of the HeroThe Time of the Hero
The Time of the Hero was the first novel published by Peruvian writer Mario Vargas Llosa. Set among a community of cadets in a Lima military school , it is notable for its experimental and complex employment of multiple perspectives...
(La ciudad y los perros), was published in 1963. The book is set among a community of cadets in a Lima military school, and the plot is based on the author's own experiences at Lima's Leoncio Prado Military Academy
Leoncio Prado Military Academy
The Leoncio Prado Military Academy is a Peruvian educational institution founded on 27 August 1943 by President of the Republic Manuel Prado Ugarteche and Secretary of Education Elías La Rosa ....
. This early piece gained wide public attention and immediate success. Its vitality and adept use of sophisticated literary techniques immediately impressed critics, and it won the Premio de la Crítica Española
Premio de la Crítica Española
The "Premios de la Crítica" are literary prizes awarded on a yearly basis by the Asociación Española de Críticos Literarios to the best narrative and poetic works published in Spain on the preceding year. The prizes cover all four official languages of Spain: Spanish or Castilian, Catalan,...
award. Nevertheless, its sharp criticism of the Peruvian military establishment led to controversy in Peru. Several Peruvian generals attacked the novel, claiming that it was the work of a "degenerate mind" and stating that Vargas Llosa was "paid by Ecuador" to undermine the prestige of the Peruvian Army.
In 1965, Vargas Llosa published his second novel, The Green House
The Green House
The Green House is the second novel by the Peruvian writer Mario Vargas Llosa, published in 1966. The novel covers more than forty years...
(La casa verde), about a brothel called "The Green House" and how its quasi-mythical presence affects the lives of the characters. The main plot follows Bonifacia, a girl who is about to receive the vows of the church, and her transformation into la Selvatica, the best-known prostitute of "The Green House". The novel was immediately acclaimed, confirming Vargas Llosa as an important voice of Latin American narrative. The Green House won the first edition of the Rómulo Gallegos International Novel Prize
Rómulo Gallegos Prize
The Rómulo Gallegos International Novel Prize was created on 6 August 1964 by a presidential decree enacted by Venezuelan President Raúl Leoni, in honor of the Venezuelan politician and President Rómulo Gallegos, the author of Doña Bárbara....
in 1967, contending with works by veteran Uruguay
Uruguay
Uruguay ,officially the Oriental Republic of Uruguay,sometimes the Eastern Republic of Uruguay; ) is a country in the southeastern part of South America. It is home to some 3.5 million people, of whom 1.8 million live in the capital Montevideo and its metropolitan area...
an writer Juan Carlos Onetti
Juan Carlos Onetti
Juan Carlos Onetti was an Uruguayan novelist and author of short stories.A high school drop-out, Onetti's first novel, El pozo, published in 1939, met with his close friends' immediate acclaim, as well as from some writers and journalists of his time...
and by Gabriel García Márquez
Gabriel García Márquez
Gabriel José de la Concordia García Márquez is a Colombian novelist, short-story writer, screenwriter and journalist, known affectionately as Gabo throughout Latin America. He is considered one of the most significant authors of the 20th century. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in...
. This novel alone accumulated enough awards to place the author among the leading figures of the Latin American Boom
Latin American Boom
The Latin American Boom was a literary movement of the 1960s and 1970s when the work of a group of relatively young Latin American novelists became widely circulated in Europe and throughout the world...
. Some critics still consider The Green House to be Vargas Llosa's finest and most important achievement. Indeed, Latin American literary critic Gerald Martin
Gerald Martin
Gerald Martin is a prolific critic of Latin American fiction. He is particularly known for his work on the Guatemalan author Miguel Ángel Asturias and on the Colombian Gabriel García Márquez, both of whom are winners of the Nobel Prize for Literature....
suggests that The Green House is "one of the greatest novels to have emerged from Latin America".
Vargas Llosa's third novel, Conversation in the Cathedral
Conversation in the Cathedral
Conversation in the Cathedral is a 1969 novel by Peruvian writer and essayist Mario Vargas Llosa, recognized as one of his major works. It is a portrayal of Peru under the dictatorship of Manuel A. Odría in the 1950s, and deals with the lives of characters from different social strata...
(Conversación en la catedral), was published in 1969, when he was 33. This ambitious narrative is the story of Santiago Zavala, the son of a government minister, and Ambrosio, his chauffeur. A random meeting at a dog pound leads the pair to a riveting conversation at a nearby bar known as "The Cathedral". During the encounter, Zavala searches for the truth about his father's role in the murder of a notorious Peruvian underworld figure, shedding light on the workings of a dictatorship along the way. Unfortunately for Zavala, his quest results in a dead end with no answers and no sign of a better future. The novel attacks the dictatorial government of Odría by showing how a dictatorship controls and destroys lives. The persistent theme of hopelessness makes Conversation in the Cathedral Vargas Llosa's most bitter novel.
1970s and the "discovery of humor"
In 1971, Vargas Llosa published García Márquez: Story of a Deicide (García Márquez: historia de un deicidio), which was his doctoral thesis for the Complutense University of Madrid. Although Vargas Llosa wrote this book-length study about his then friend, Nobel prizeNobel Prize in Literature
Since 1901, the Nobel Prize in Literature has been awarded annually to an author from any country who has, in the words from the will of Alfred Nobel, produced "in the field of literature the most outstanding work in an ideal direction"...
-winning Colombian author Gabriel García Márquez, they have not spoken to each other in more than 30 years. In 1976, Vargas Llosa punched García Márquez in the face in Mexico City
Mexico City
Mexico City is the Federal District , capital of Mexico and seat of the federal powers of the Mexican Union. It is a federal entity within Mexico which is not part of any one of the 31 Mexican states but belongs to the federation as a whole...
at the Palacio de Bellas Artes
Palacio de Bellas Artes
The Palacio de Bellas Artes is the most important cultural center in Mexico City as well as the rest of the country of Mexico...
, ending the friendship. Neither writer has publicly stated the underlying reasons for the quarrel. A photograph of García Márquez sporting a black eye was published in 2007, reigniting public interest in the feud. Despite the decades of silence, in 2007, Vargas Llosa agreed to allow part of his book to be used as the introduction to a 40th-anniversary edition of García Márquez's One Hundred Years of Solitude
One Hundred Years of Solitude
One Hundred Years of Solitude , by Gabriel García Márquez, is a novel which tells the multi-generational story of the Buendía family, whose patriarch, José Arcadio Buendía, founds the town of Macondo, the metaphoric Colombia...
, which was re-released in Spain and throughout Latin America that year. Historia de un Deicidio was also reissued in that year, as part of Vargas Llosa's complete works.
Following the monumental work Conversation in the Cathedral, Vargas Llosa's output shifted away from more serious themes such as politics and problems with society. Latin American literary scholar Raymond L. Williams describes this phase in his writing career as "the discovery of humor". His first attempt at a satirical novel was Captain Pantoja and the Special Service (Pantaleón y las visitadoras), published in 1973. This short, comic novel offers vignettes of dialogues and documents about the Peruvian armed forces and a corps of prostitutes assigned to visit military outposts in remote jungle areas. These plot elements are similar to Vargas Llosa's earlier novel The Green House, but in a different form. As such, Captain Pantoja and the Special Service is essentially a parody
Parody
A parody , in current usage, is an imitative work created to mock, comment on, or trivialise an original work, its subject, author, style, or some other target, by means of humorous, satiric or ironic imitation...
of both The Green House and the literary approach that novel represents. Vargas Llosa's motivation to write the novel came from actually witnessing prostitutes being hired by the Peruvian Army and brought to serve soldiers in the jungle.
From 1974 to 1987, Vargas Llosa focused on his writing, but also took the time to pursue other endeavors. In 1975, he co-directed an unsuccessful motion-picture adaptation of his novel, Captain Pantoja and the Secret Service. Following this he was elected President of the International PEN
International PEN
PEN International , the worldwide association of writers, was founded in London in 1921 to promote friendship and intellectual co-operation among writers everywhere....
, a worldwide association of writers. During this time, Vargas Llosa constantly traveled to speak at conferences organized by internationally renowned institutions, such as the Hebrew University of Jerusalem
Hebrew University of Jerusalem
The Hebrew University of Jerusalem ; ; abbreviated HUJI) is Israel's second-oldest university, after the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology. The Hebrew University has three campuses in Jerusalem and one in Rehovot. The world's largest Jewish studies library is located on its Edmond J...
and the University of Cambridge
University of Cambridge
The University of Cambridge is a public research university located in Cambridge, United Kingdom. It is the second-oldest university in both the United Kingdom and the English-speaking world , and the seventh-oldest globally...
, where he was an Overseas Fellow of Churchill College in 1977–78.
In 1977, Vargas Llosa was elected as a member of the Peruvian Academy of Language
Academia Peruana de la Lengua
The Academia Peruana de la Lengua is an association of academics and experts on the use of the Spanish language in Peru....
, a membership he still holds today. That year, he also published Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter
Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter
Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter is the fifth novel by Mario Vargas Llosa. It was published by Editorial Seix Barral, S.A., Spain, in 1977. Set in Peru during the 1950s, it is the story of an 18 year old student who falls for a 32 year old divorcee...
(La tía Julia y el escribidor), based in part on his marriage to his first wife, Julia Urquidi, to whom he dedicated the novel. She later wrote a memoir, Lo que Varguitas no dijo (What Little Vargas Didn't Say), in which she gives her personal account of their relationship. She states that Vargas Llosa's account exaggerates many negative points in their courtship and marriage while minimizing her role of assisting his literary career. Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter is considered one of the most striking examples of how the language and imagery of popular culture can be used in literature. The novel was adapted in 1990 into a Hollywood feature film, Tune in Tomorrow
Tune in Tomorrow
Tune In Tomorrow is a 1990 film comedy directed by John Amiel.It is based on the Mario Vargas Llosa novel Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter, and was released under that name in many countries...
.
Later novels
Vargas Llosa's fourth major novel, The War of the End of the WorldThe War of the End of the World
The War of the End of the World is a 1981 novel written by Peruvian novelist Mario Vargas Llosa. It is a novelization of the War of Canudos conflict in late 19th-century Brazil.-Plot summary:...
(La guerra del fin del mundo), was published in 1981 and was his first attempt at a historical novel
Historical novel
According to Encyclopædia Britannica, a historical novel is-Development:An early example of historical prose fiction is Luó Guànzhōng's 14th century Romance of the Three Kingdoms, which covers one of the most important periods of Chinese history and left a lasting impact on Chinese culture.The...
. This work initiated a radical change in Vargas Llosa's style towards themes such as messianism
Messianism
Messianism is the belief in a messiah, a savior or redeemer. Many religions have a messiah concept, including the Jewish Messiah, the Christian Christ, the Muslim Mahdi and Isa , the Buddhist Maitreya, the Hindu Kalki and the Zoroastrian Saoshyant...
and irrational human behaviour. It recreates the War of Canudos
War of Canudos
The War of Canudos was a conflict between the state of Brazil and a group of some 30,000 settlers who had founded their own community in the northeastern state of Bahia, named Canudos...
, an incident in 19th-century Brazil
Brazil
Brazil , officially the Federative Republic of Brazil , is the largest country in South America. It is the world's fifth largest country, both by geographical area and by population with over 192 million people...
in which an armed millenarian cult held off a siege by the national army for months. As in Vargas Llosa's earliest work, this novel carries a sober and serious theme, and its tone is dark. Vargas Llosa's bold exploration of humanity's propensity to idealize violence, and his account of a man-made catastrophe brought on by fanaticism, earned the novel substantial recognition.
Because of the book's ambition and execution, critics have argued that this is one of Vargas Llosa's greatest literary pieces.
After completing The War of the End of the World, Vargas Llosa began to write novels that were significantly shorter than many of his earlier books. In 1983, he finished The Real Life of Alejandro Mayta (Historia de Mayta, 1984). The novel focuses on a leftist insurrection that took place on May 29, 1962 in the Andean
Andes
The Andes is the world's longest continental mountain range. It is a continual range of highlands along the western coast of South America. This range is about long, about to wide , and of an average height of about .Along its length, the Andes is split into several ranges, which are separated...
city of Jauja
Jauja
Jauja is a city and capital of Jauja Province in Peru. It is situated in the fertile Mantaro Valley, to the northwest of Huancayo , at an altitude of . Its population according to the 2007 census was 16,424....
. Later the same year, during the Sendero Luminoso uprising, Vargas Llosa was asked by the Peruvian President Fernando Belaúnde Terry
Fernando Belaúnde Terry
Fernando Belaúnde Terry was President of Peru for two non-consecutive terms . Deposed by a military coup in 1968, he was re-elected in 1980 after eleven years of military rule...
to join the Investigatory Commission, a task force to inquire into the horrific massacre of eight journalists at the hands of the villagers of Uchuraccay
Uchuraccay
Uchuraccay is a village in the Peruvian province of Huanta, Ayacucho Region. It is located 4,000 meters above sea level. The population as of the census of 1981 was 470 inhabitants. It was deserted in 1984 due to the Peruvian government's struggle against Sendero Luminoso but some families...
. The Commission's main purpose was to investigate the murders in order to provide information regarding the incident to the public. Following his involvement with the Investigatory Commission, Vargas Llosa published a series of articles to defend his position in the affair. In 1986, he completed his next novel, Who Killed Palomino Molero (¿Quién mató a Palomino Molero?), which he began writing shortly after the end of the Uchuraccay investigation. Though the plot of this mystery novel is similar to the tragic events at Uchuraccay, literary critic Roy Boland points out that it was not an attempt to reconstruct the murders, but rather a "literary exorcism" of Vargas Llosa's own experiences during the commission. The experience also inspired one of Vargas Llosa's later novels, Death in the Andes
Death in the Andes
Death in the Andes is a 1993 novel by the Peruvian Mario Vargas Llosa. It follows the character Lituma, from Who Killed Palomino Molero?, after being transferred to the rural town of Naccos.-Plot:...
(Lituma en los Andes), originally published in 1993 in Barcelona.
It would be almost 20 years before Vargas Llosa wrote another major work: The Feast of the Goat
The Feast of the Goat
The Feast of the Goat is a novel by the Peruvian Nobel Prize in Literature laureate Mario Vargas Llosa. The book is set in the Dominican Republic and portrays the assassination of Dominican dictator Rafael Leónidas Trujillo, and its aftermath, from two distinct standpoints a generation apart:...
(La fiesta del chivo), a political thriller
Political thriller
A political thriller is a thriller that is set against the backdrop of a political power struggle. They usually involve various extra-legal plots, designed to give political power to someone, while his opponents try to stop him. They can involve national or international political scenarios....
, was published in 2000 (and in English in 2001). According to Williams, it is Vargas Llosa's most complete and most ambitious novel since The War of the End of the World. Critic Sabine Koellmann sees it in the line of his earlier novels such as "Conversación en la catedral" depicting the effects of authoritarianism, violence and the abuse of power on the individual. Based on the dictatorship of Rafael Trujillo, who governed the Dominican Republic
Dominican Republic
The Dominican Republic is a nation on the island of La Hispaniola, part of the Greater Antilles archipelago in the Caribbean region. The western third of the island is occupied by the nation of Haiti, making Hispaniola one of two Caribbean islands that are shared by two countries...
from 1930 until his assassination in 1961, the novel has three main strands: one concerns Urania Cabral, the daughter of a former politician and Trujillo loyalist, who returns for the first time since leaving the Dominican Republic after Trujillo's assassination 30 years earlier; the second concentrates on the assassination itself, the conspirators who carry it out, and its consequences; and the third and final strand deals with Trujillo himself in scenes from the end of his regime. The book quickly received positive reviews in Spain and Latin America, and has had a significant impact in Latin America, being regarded as one of Vargas Llosa's best works.
In 2006, Vargas Llosa wrote The Bad Girl
The Bad Girl
The Bad Girl, originally published in 2006 in Spanish as Travesuras de la niña mala, is a novel by Peruvian author Mario Vargas Llosa.Journalist Kathryn Harrison approvingly argues that the book is a rewrite of the French modernist Gustave Flaubert's classic novel Madame Bovary...
(Travesuras de la niña mala), which journalist Kathryn Harrison argues is a rewrite (rather than simply a recycling) of Gustave Flaubert
Gustave Flaubert
Gustave Flaubert was a French writer who is counted among the greatest Western novelists. He is known especially for his first published novel, Madame Bovary , and for his scrupulous devotion to his art and style.-Early life and education:Flaubert was born on December 12, 1821, in Rouen,...
's Madame Bovary
Madame Bovary
Madame Bovary is Gustave Flaubert's first published novel and is considered his masterpiece. The story focuses on a doctor's wife, Emma Bovary, who has adulterous affairs and lives beyond her means in order to escape the banalities and emptiness of provincial life...
(1856). In Vargas Llosa's version, the plot relates the decades-long obsession of its narrator, a Peruvian expatriate in Paris, with a woman with whom he first fell in love when both were teenagers.
Later life and political involvement
Like many other Latin American intellectuals, Vargas Llosa was initially a supporter of the Cuban revolutionaryCuban Revolution
The Cuban Revolution was an armed revolt by Fidel Castro's 26th of July Movement against the regime of Cuban dictator Fulgencio Batista between 1953 and 1959. Batista was finally ousted on 1 January 1959, and was replaced by a revolutionary government led by Castro...
government of Fidel Castro
Fidel Castro
Fidel Alejandro Castro Ruz is a Cuban revolutionary and politician, having held the position of Prime Minister of Cuba from 1959 to 1976, and then President from 1976 to 2008. He also served as the First Secretary of the Communist Party of Cuba from the party's foundation in 1961 until 2011...
. He studied Marxism
Marxism
Marxism is an economic and sociopolitical worldview and method of socioeconomic inquiry that centers upon a materialist interpretation of history, a dialectical view of social change, and an analysis and critique of the development of capitalism. Marxism was pioneered in the early to mid 19th...
in depth as a university student and was later persuaded by communist
Communism
Communism is a social, political and economic ideology that aims at the establishment of a classless, moneyless, revolutionary and stateless socialist society structured upon common ownership of the means of production...
ideals after the success of the Cuban Revolution. Gradually, Vargas Llosa came to believe that Cuban socialism
Socialism
Socialism is an economic system characterized by social ownership of the means of production and cooperative management of the economy; or a political philosophy advocating such a system. "Social ownership" may refer to any one of, or a combination of, the following: cooperative enterprises,...
was incompatible with what he considered to be general liberties and freedoms. The official rupture between the writer and the policies of the Cuban government occurred with the so-called 'Padilla Affair', when the Castro regime imprisoned the poet Heberto Padilla
Heberto Padilla
Heberto Padilla was a Cuban poet. The Padilla Affair was named after him. He was born in Puerta de Golpe, Pinar del Río, Cuba. His first book of poetry, Las rosas audaces , was published in 1948...
for a month in 1971. Vargas Llosa, along with other intellectuals of the time, wrote to Castro protesting the Cuban political system and its imprisonment of the artist. Vargas Llosa has identified himself with liberalism rather than extreme left-wing political ideologies ever since. Since he relinquished his earlier leftism, he has opposed both left- and right-wing authoritarian regimes.
With his appointment to the Investigatory Commission in 1983 he experienced what literary critic Jean Franco
Jean Franco
Jean Franco is a British-born academic and literary critic known for her pioneering work on Latin American literature. Educated at Manchester and London, she has taught at London, Essex , and Stanford, and is currently professor emerita at Columbia University.-Research:Jean Franco's research is...
calls "the most uncomfortable event in [his] political career". Unfortunately for Vargas Llosa, his involvement with the Investigatory Commission led to immediate negative reactions and defamation from the Peruvian press; many suggested that the massacre was a conspiracy to keep the journalists from reporting the presence of government paramilitary forces in Uchuraccay. The commission concluded that it was the indigenous villagers who had been responsible for the killings; for Vargas Llosa the incident showed "how vulnerable democracy is in Latin America and how easily it dies under dictatorships of the right and left". These conclusions, and Vargas Llosa personally, came under intense criticism: anthropologist Enrique Mayer, for instance, accused him of "paternalism", while fellow anthropologist Carlos Iván Degregori criticized him for his ignorance of the Andean world. Vargas Llosa was accused of actively colluding in a government cover-up of army involvement in the massacre. US Latin American literature
Latin American literature
Latin American literature consists of the oral and written literature of Latin America in several languages, particularly in Spanish, Portuguese, and indigenous languages of the Americas. It rose to particular prominence globally during the second half of the 20th century, largely due to the...
scholar Misha Kokotovic summarizes that the novelist was charged with seeing "indigenous cultures as a 'primitive' obstacle to the full realization of his Western model of modernity". Shocked both by the atrocity itself and then by the reaction his report had provoked, Vargas Llosa responded that his critics were apparently more concerned with his report than with the hundreds of peasants who would later die at the hands of the Sendero Luminoso guerrilla organization.
Liberty Movement
Liberty Movement , was a political party in Peru founded in 1987 by groups opposing the nationalization of the banking sector in 1986. Instead it advocated a free market approach to solving Peru's hyperinflation, which peaked at over 7000%.It was first formed in 1988 together with Popular Action...
. The following year his party entered a coalition with the parties of Peru's two principal conservative politicians at the time, ex-president Fernando Belaúnde Terry
Fernando Belaúnde Terry
Fernando Belaúnde Terry was President of Peru for two non-consecutive terms . Deposed by a military coup in 1968, he was re-elected in 1980 after eleven years of military rule...
(of the Popular Action party) and Luis Bedoya Reyes
Luis Bedoya Reyes
Luis Bedoya Reyes was a Peruvian Christian Democrat and Christian People's Party politician in the late 1960s. He was the mayor of Lima from 1964 to 1969. He is also a former Minister of Justice, member of the Peruvian Congress and ran for Peruvian president two times...
(of the Partido Popular Cristiano), to form the tripartite center-right coalition known as Frente Democrático
Democratic Front (Peru)
Democratic Front , also known as FREDEMO, was a center-right liberal and conservative political alliance in Peru founded in 1988 by Liberty Movement, Popular Action and Christian People's Party. FREDEMO contested the 1989 municipal elections and the 1990 presidential elections ....
(FREDEMO). He ran for the presidency of Peru in 1990 as the candidate of the FREDEMO coalition. He proposed a drastic economic austerity
Austerity
In economics, austerity is a policy of deficit-cutting, lower spending, and a reduction in the amount of benefits and public services provided. Austerity policies are often used by governments to reduce their deficit spending while sometimes coupled with increases in taxes to pay back creditors to...
program that frightened most of the country's poor; this program emphasized the need for privatization, a market economy, free trade, and most importantly, the dissemination of private property. Although he won the first round with 34% of the vote, Vargas Llosa was defeated by a then-unknown agricultural engineer, Alberto Fujimori
Alberto Fujimori
Alberto Fujimori Fujimori served as President of Peru from 28 July 1990 to 17 November 2000. A controversial figure, Fujimori has been credited with the creation of Fujimorism, uprooting terrorism in Peru and restoring its macroeconomic stability, though his methods have drawn charges of...
, in the subsequent run-off. Vargas Llosa included an account of his run for the presidency in the memoir A Fish in the Water
A Fish in the Water
A Fish in the Water, originally published as El pez en el agua in 1993, is the memoir of Peruvian writer Mario Vargas Llosa. It covers two main periods of his life: the first comprising the years between 1946 and 1958, describes his childhood and the beginning of his writing career in Europe...
(El pez en el agua, 1993). Since his political defeat, he has focused mainly on his writing, with only occasional political involvement.
A month after losing the election, at the invitation of Octavio Paz
Octavio Paz
Octavio Paz Lozano was a Mexican writer, poet, and diplomat, and the winner of the 1990 Nobel Prize for Literature.-Early life and writings:...
, Vargas Llosa attended a conference in Mexico entitled, "The 20th Century: The Experience of Freedom". Focused on the collapse of communist rule in central and eastern Europe, it was broadcast on Mexican television. In an address to the conference, Vargas Llosa condemned the Mexican system of power based on the rule of the Institutional Revolutionary Party
Institutional Revolutionary Party
The Institutional Revolutionary Party is a Mexican political party that held power in the country—under a succession of names—for more than 70 years. The PRI is a member of the Socialist International, as is the rival Party of the Democratic Revolution , making Mexico one of the few...
, which had been in power for 61 years. He declared, "Mexico is the perfect dictatorship. The perfect dictatorship is not communism, not the USSR, not Fidel Castro; the perfect dictatorship is Mexico. Because it is a camouflaged dictatorship."
Vargas Llosa has mainly lived in Madrid since the 1990s, but spends roughly three months of the year in Peru with his extended family. He also frequently visits London where he occasionally spends long periods. Vargas Llosa acquired Spanish citizenship in 1993, though he still holds Peruvian nationality
Peruvian nationality law
According to the Peruvian Constitution and nationality legislation passed in 1996 as well as an executive order declared in 1997, Peruvian nationality can be passed by birth via jus soli or by registration if born overseas and duly registered at a Peruvian embassy or consulate before the child...
. The writer often reiterates his love for both countries. In his Nobel speech he observed: "I carry Peru deep inside me because that is where I was born, grew up, was formed, and lived those experiences of childhood and youth that shaped my personality and forged my calling". He then added: "I love Spain as much as Peru, and my debt to her is as great as my gratitude. If not for Spain, I never would have reached this podium or become a known writer".
In 1994 he was elected a member of the Real Academia Española
Real Academia Española
The Royal Spanish Academy is the official royal institution responsible for regulating the Spanish language. It is based in Madrid, Spain, but is affiliated with national language academies in twenty-one other hispanophone nations through the Association of Spanish Language Academies...
(Royal Spanish Academy) and has been involved in the country's political arena. In February 2008 he stopped supporting the People's Party
People's Party (Spain)
The People's Party is a conservative political party in Spain.The People's Party was a re-foundation in 1989 of the People's Alliance , a party led and founded by Manuel Fraga Iribarne, a former Minister of Tourism during Francisco Franco's dictatorship...
in favor of the recently created Union, Progress and Democracy
Union, Progress and Democracy
Union, Progress and Democracy is a Spanish political party founded in September 2007.It is a progressivist party, between social democracy and social liberalism. One of its goals is to build a federal system for Spain and European Union, with clear responsibilities distributed among local...
, claiming that certain conservative views held by the former party are at odds with his classical liberal beliefs. His political ideologies appear in the book Política razonable, written with Fernando Savater
Fernando Savater
Fernando Fernández-Savater Martín is one of Spain's most popular living philosophers, as well as an essayist and celebrated author....
, Rosa Díez
Rosa Díez
Rosa Díez González is a Spanish politician. She is a former Member of the European Parliament for the PSOE , integrated in the Party of European Socialists.In 2007 she gave up her seat and left the PSOE due to strong disagreement on what she perceived to be the...
, Álvaro Pombo
Álvaro Pombo
Álvaro Pombo García de los Ríos is a Spanish poet, novelist, and activist.Born in Santander, Cantabria, he studied at the Complutense University of Madrid and received a Bachelor of Arts in philosophy at Birkbeck, University of London, where he lived between 1966 and 1977...
, Albert Boadella
Albert Boadella
Albert Boadella Oncins is a Spanish actor and director, one of the founders of the well-known theatre company Els Joglars.- References :...
and Carlos Martínez Gorriarán
Carlos Martínez Gorriarán
Carlos Martínez Gorriarán is a Spanish scholar, born in San Sebastián, Basque Country, Spain. He is one of the founding members and spokespersons for the ¡Basta Ya! association and head of the Plataforma Pro from which the Union, Progress and Democracy party emerged in September 2007...
. He continues to write, both journalism and fiction, and to travel extensively. He has also taught as a visiting professor at a number of prominent universities.
On November 18, 2010, Vargas Llosa received the honorary degree Degree of Letters from the City College of New York of the City University of New York, where he also delivered the President's Lecture.
On 4 February 2011, Vargas Llosa was raised into the Spanish nobility
Spanish nobility
Spanish nobles are persons who possess the legal status of hereditary nobility according to the laws and traditions of the Spanish monarchy. A system of titles and honours of Spain and of the former kingdoms that constitute it comprise the Spanish nobility...
by King Juan Carlos I
Juan Carlos I of Spain
Juan Carlos I |Italy]]) is the reigning King of Spain.On 22 November 1975, two days after the death of General Francisco Franco, Juan Carlos was designated king according to the law of succession promulgated by Franco. Spain had no monarch for 38 years in 1969 when Franco named Juan Carlos as the...
with the hereditary title of Marqués de Vargas Llosa (English
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
: Marquis of Vargas Llosa).
In April 2011, the writer took part in the Peruvian general election, 2011
Peruvian general election, 2011
The Peruvian general election, 2011 took place on 10 April 2011. Since no candidate received more than half of all valid votes, a second round was necessary to determine the winner. This second round took place on 5 June and determined the successor of Alan García, as well as 130 members of the...
by saying he was going to vote for Alejandro Toledo
Alejandro Toledo
Alejandro Celestino Toledo Manrique is a politician who was President of Peru from 2001 to 2006. He was elected in April 2001, defeating former President Alan García...
(peruvian former president 2001-2006). After cast his vote, he said his country should stay in the path of legality and freedom.
As for hobbies, Vargas Llosa is very fond of football, and is a renowned supporter of Universitario de Deportes
Universitario de Deportes
Club Universitario de Deportes, also known as Universitario, or more popularly as [La] "U", is a Peruvian football club located in Lima. It is the most successful football club in Peru. The club was founded in 1924 under the name Federación Universitaria by students of the National University of...
. The writer himself has confessed in his book A Fish in the Water
A Fish in the Water
A Fish in the Water, originally published as El pez en el agua in 1993, is the memoir of Peruvian writer Mario Vargas Llosa. It covers two main periods of his life: the first comprising the years between 1946 and 1958, describes his childhood and the beginning of his writing career in Europe...
since childhood he has been a fan of the 'cream colored' team from Peru
Peru
Peru , officially the Republic of Peru , is a country in western South America. It is bordered on the north by Ecuador and Colombia, on the east by Brazil, on the southeast by Bolivia, on the south by Chile, and on the west by the Pacific Ocean....
, which was first seen in the field one day in 1946 when he was only 10 years old. In February 2011, Vargas Llosa was awarded with an honorary life membership of this football club, in a ceremony which took place in the Monumental Stadium of Lima
Lima
Lima is the capital and the largest city of Peru. It is located in the valleys of the Chillón, Rímac and Lurín rivers, in the central part of the country, on a desert coast overlooking the Pacific Ocean. Together with the seaport of Callao, it forms a contiguous urban area known as the Lima...
.
Plot, setting, and major themes
Vargas Llosa's style encompasses historical material as well as his own personal experiences. For example, in his first novel, The Time of the Hero, his own experiences at the Leoncio Prado military school informed his depiction of the corrupt social institution which mocked the moral standards it was supposed to uphold. Furthermore, the corruption of the book's school is a reflection of the corruption of Peruvian society at the time the novel was written. Vargas Llosa frequently uses his writing to challenge the inadequacies of society, such as demoralization and oppression by those in political power towards those who challenge this power. One of the main themes he has explored in his writing is the individual's struggle for freedom within an oppressive reality. For example, his two-volume novel Conversation in the Cathedral is based on the tyrannical dictatorship of Peruvian President Manuel A. OdríaManuel A. Odría
Manuel Arturo Odría Amoretti was the President of Peru from 1948 to 1956.Manuel Odría was born in 1897 in Tarma, a city in the central Andes just east of Lima. He graduated first in his class from the Chorillos Military Academy in 1915. He joined the army and as a lieutenant-colonel was a war...
. The protagonist, Santiago, rebels against the suffocating dictatorship by participating in the subversive activities of leftist political groups. In addition to themes such as corruption and oppression, Vargas Llosa's second novel, The Green House, explores "a denunciation of Peru's basic institutions", dealing with issues of abuse and exploitation of the workers in the brothel by corrupt military officers.
Many of Vargas Llosa's earlier novels were set in Peru, while in more recent work he has expanded to other regions of Latin America, such as Brazil and the Dominican Republic. His responsibilities as a writer and lecturer have allowed him to travel frequently and led to settings for his novels in regions outside of Peru. The War of the End of the World was his first major work set outside Peru. Though the plot deals with historical events of the Canudos
Canudos
Canudos was a town founded in the racially diverse Bahia state of northeastern Brazil in 1893 by Antônio Vicente Mendes Maciel. Antonio was an itinerant preacher from Ceara who had been wandering through the backroads and lesser-inhabited areas of the country from the 1870s onwards, followed by a...
revolt against the Brazilian government, the novel is not based directly on historical fact; rather, its main inspiration is the non-fiction account of those events published by Brazilian writer Euclides da Cunha
Euclides da Cunha
Euclides da Cunha was a Brazilian writer, sociologist and engineer. His most important work is Os Sertões , a non-fictional account of the military expeditions promoted by the Brazilian government against the rebellious village of Canudos, known as the War of Canudos...
in 1902. The Feast of the Goat, based on the dictatorship of Rafael Trujillo, takes place in the Dominican Republic
Dominican Republic
The Dominican Republic is a nation on the island of La Hispaniola, part of the Greater Antilles archipelago in the Caribbean region. The western third of the island is occupied by the nation of Haiti, making Hispaniola one of two Caribbean islands that are shared by two countries...
; in preparation for this novel, Vargas Llosa undertook a comprehensive study of Dominican history. The novel was characteristically realist
Literary realism
Literary realism most often refers to the trend, beginning with certain works of nineteenth-century French literature and extending to late-nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century authors in various countries, towards depictions of contemporary life and society "as they were." In the spirit of...
, and Vargas Llosa underscores that he "respected the basic facts, [. . .] I have not exaggerated", but at the same time he points out "It's a novel, not a history book, so I took many, many liberties."
One of Vargas Llosa's more recent novels, The Way to Paradise (El paraíso en la otra esquina), is set largely in France and Tahiti
Tahiti
Tahiti is the largest island in the Windward group of French Polynesia, located in the archipelago of the Society Islands in the southern Pacific Ocean. It is the economic, cultural and political centre of French Polynesia. The island was formed from volcanic activity and is high and mountainous...
. Based on the biography of former social reformer Flora Tristan
Flora Tristan
Flora Tristan was a socialist writer and activist. She was also one of the founders of modern feminism...
, it demonstrates how Flora and Paul Gauguin
Paul Gauguin
Eugène Henri Paul Gauguin was a leading French Post-Impressionist artist. He was an important figure in the Symbolist movement as a painter, sculptor, print-maker, ceramist, and writer...
were unable to find paradise, but were still able to inspire followers to keep working towards a socialist utopia
Utopia
Utopia is an ideal community or society possessing a perfect socio-politico-legal system. The word was imported from Greek by Sir Thomas More for his 1516 book Utopia, describing a fictional island in the Atlantic Ocean. The term has been used to describe both intentional communities that attempt...
. Unfortunately, Vargas Llosa was not as successful in transforming these historical figures into fiction. Some critics, such as Barbara Mujica, argue that The Way to Paradise lacks the "audacity, energy, political vision, and narrative genius" that was present in his previous works.
Modernism and postmodernism
The works of Mario Vargas Llosa are viewed as both modernist and postmodernist novels. Though there is still much debate over the differences between modernist and postmodernist literature, literary scholar M. Keith Booker claims that the difficulty and technical complexity of Vargas Llosa's early works, such as The Green House and Conversation in the Cathedral, are clearly elements of the modern novel. Furthermore, these earlier novels all carry a certain seriousness of attitude—another important defining aspect of modernist art. By contrast, his later novels such as Captain Pantoja and the Special Service, Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter, The Real Life of Alejandro Mayta, and The StorytellerThe Storyteller (novel)
The Storyteller is a novel by Peruvian author Mario Vargas Llosa. The story tells of a man who leaves civilization and becomes a "storyteller" for the Machiguenga Indians...
(El hablador) appear to follow a postmodernist mode of writing. These novels have a much lighter, farcical
Farce
In theatre, a farce is a comedy which aims at entertaining the audience by means of unlikely, extravagant, and improbable situations, disguise and mistaken identity, verbal humour of varying degrees of sophistication, which may include word play, and a fast-paced plot whose speed usually increases,...
, and comic tone, characteristics of postmodernism. Comparing two of Vargas Llosa's novels, The Green House and Captain Pantoja and the Special Service, Booker discusses the contrast between modernism and postmodernism found in the writer's works: while both novels explore the theme of prostitution as well as the workings of the Peruvian military, Booker points out that the former is gravely serious whereas the latter is ridiculously comic.
Interlacing dialogues
Literary scholar M. Keith Booker argues that Vargas Llosa perfects the technique of interlacing dialogues in his novel The Green House. By combining two conversations that occur at different times, he creates the illusion of a flashbackFlashback (narrative)
Flashback is an interjected scene that takes the narrative back in time from the current point the story has reached. Flashbacks are often used to recount events that happened before the story’s primary sequence of events or to fill in crucial backstory...
. Vargas Llosa also sometimes uses this technique as a means of shifting location by weaving together two concurrent conversations happening in different places. This technique is a staple of his repertoire, which he began using near the end of his first novel, The Time of the Hero. However, he does not use interlacing dialogues in the same way in all of his novels. For example, in The Green House the technique is used in a serious fashion to achieve a sober tone and to focus on the interrelatedness of important events separated in time or space. In contrast, Captain Pantoja and the Special Service employs this strategy for comic effects and uses simpler spatial shifts. This device is similar to both Virginia Woolf
Virginia Woolf
Adeline Virginia Woolf was an English author, essayist, publisher, and writer of short stories, regarded as one of the foremost modernist literary figures of the twentieth century....
's mixing of different characters' soliloquies and Gustave Flaubert's counterpoint
Counterpoint
In music, counterpoint is the relationship between two or more voices that are independent in contour and rhythm and are harmonically interdependent . It has been most commonly identified in classical music, developing strongly during the Renaissance and in much of the common practice period,...
technique in which he blends together conversation with other events, such as speeches.
Literary influences
Vargas Llosa's first literary influences were relatively obscure Peruvian writers such as Martín AdánMartín Adán
Martín Adán , pseudonym of Rafael de la Fuente Benavides, was a Peruvian poet whose body of work is notable for its hermeticism and metaphysical depth....
, Carlos Oquendo de Amat
Carlos Oquendo de Amat
Carlos Oquendo de Amat was a Peruvian poet born in Puno.-Works:* Carlos Oquendo de Amat, 5 Metros de Poemas, Ediciones el Taller del Libro: Madrid, 2003. ISBN 84-933844-1-0....
, and César Moro
César Moro
César Moro is the pseudonym of Alfredo Quíspez Asín a Peruvian born poet and painter. He travelled to Paris in 1925 and most of his poetic works are written in French.-External links:* *...
. As a young writer, he looked to these revolutionary novelists in search of new narrative structures and techniques in order to delineate a more contemporary, multifaceted experience of urban Peru. He was looking for a style different from the traditional descriptions of land and rural life made famous by Peru's foremost novelist at the time, José María Arguedas
José María Arguedas
José María Arguedas Altamirano was a Peruvian novelist, poet, and anthropologist who wrote mainly in Spanish, although some of his poetry is in Quechua...
. Vargas Llosa wrote of Arguedas's work that it was "an example of old-fashioned regionalism that had already exhausted its imaginary possibilities". Although he did not share Arguedas's passion for indigenous reality, Vargas Llosa admired and respected the novelist for his contributions to Peruvian literature. Indeed, he has published a book-length study on his work, La utopía arcaica (1996).
Rather than restrict himself to Peruvian literature, Vargas Llosa also looked abroad for literary inspiration. Two French figures, existentialist Jean-Paul Sartre
Jean-Paul Sartre
Jean-Paul Charles Aymard Sartre was a French existentialist philosopher, playwright, novelist, screenwriter, political activist, biographer, and literary critic. He was one of the leading figures in 20th century French philosophy, particularly Marxism, and was one of the key figures in literary...
and novelist Gustave Flaubert
Gustave Flaubert
Gustave Flaubert was a French writer who is counted among the greatest Western novelists. He is known especially for his first published novel, Madame Bovary , and for his scrupulous devotion to his art and style.-Early life and education:Flaubert was born on December 12, 1821, in Rouen,...
, influenced both his technique and style. Sartre's influence is most prevalent in Vargas Llosa's extensive use of conversation. The epigraph of The Time of the Hero, his first novel, is also taken directly from Sartre's work. Flaubert's artistic independence—his novels' disregard of reality and morals—has always been admired by Vargas Llosa, who wrote a book-length study of Flaubert's aesthetics
Aesthetics
Aesthetics is a branch of philosophy dealing with the nature of beauty, art, and taste, and with the creation and appreciation of beauty. It is more scientifically defined as the study of sensory or sensori-emotional values, sometimes called judgments of sentiment and taste...
, The Perpetual Orgy. In his analysis of Flaubert, Vargas Llosa questions the revolutionary power of literature in a political setting; this is in contrast to his earlier view that "literature is an act of rebellion", thus marking a transition in Vargas Llosa's aesthetic beliefs.
One of Vargas Llosa's favourite novelists, and arguably the most influential on his writing career, is the American William Faulkner
William Faulkner
William Cuthbert Faulkner was an American writer from Oxford, Mississippi. Faulkner worked in a variety of media; he wrote novels, short stories, a play, poetry, essays and screenplays during his career...
. Vargas Llosa considers Faulkner "the writer who perfected the methods of the modern novel". Both writers' styles include intricate changes in time and narration. In The Time of the Hero, for example, aspects of Vargas Llosa's plot, his main character's development and his use of narrative time are influenced by his favourite Faulkner novel, Light in August
Light in August
Light in August is a 1932 novel by the American author William Faulkner.Light in August is an exploration of racial conflict in the society of the Southern United States. Originally Faulkner planned to call the novel Dark House, which also became the working title for Absalom, Absalom!...
.
In addition to the studies of Arguedas and Flaubert, Vargas Llosa has written literary criticisms of other authors that he has admired, such as García Márquez, Albert Camus
Albert Camus
Albert Camus was a French author, journalist, and key philosopher of the 20th century. In 1949, Camus founded the Group for International Liaisons within the Revolutionary Union Movement, which was opposed to some tendencies of the Surrealist movement of André Breton.Camus was awarded the 1957...
, Ernest Hemingway
Ernest Hemingway
Ernest Miller Hemingway was an American author and journalist. His economic and understated style had a strong influence on 20th-century fiction, while his life of adventure and his public image influenced later generations. Hemingway produced most of his work between the mid-1920s and the...
, and Jean-Paul Sartre
Jean-Paul Sartre
Jean-Paul Charles Aymard Sartre was a French existentialist philosopher, playwright, novelist, screenwriter, political activist, biographer, and literary critic. He was one of the leading figures in 20th century French philosophy, particularly Marxism, and was one of the key figures in literary...
. The main goals of his non-fiction works are to acknowledge the influence of these authors on his writing, and to recognize a connection between himself and the other writers; critic Sara Castro-Klarén argues that he offers little systematic analysis of these authors' literary techniques. In The Perpetual Orgy, for example, he discusses the relationship between his own aesthetics and Flaubert's, rather than focusing on Flaubert's alone.
Impact
Mario Vargas Llosa is considered a major Latin American writer, alongside other authors such as Octavio PazOctavio Paz
Octavio Paz Lozano was a Mexican writer, poet, and diplomat, and the winner of the 1990 Nobel Prize for Literature.-Early life and writings:...
, Julio Cortázar
Julio Cortázar
Julio Cortázar, born Jules Florencio Cortázar, was an Argentine writer. Cortázar, known as one of the founders of the Latin American Boom, influenced an entire generation of Spanish speaking readers and writers in the Americas and Europe.-Early life:Cortázar's parents, Julio José Cortázar and...
, Jorge Luis Borges
Jorge Luis Borges
Jorge Francisco Isidoro Luis Borges Acevedo , known as Jorge Luis Borges , was an Argentine writer, essayist, poet and translator born in Buenos Aires. In 1914 his family moved to Switzerland where he attended school, receiving his baccalauréat from the Collège de Genève in 1918. The family...
, Gabriel García Márquez
Gabriel García Márquez
Gabriel José de la Concordia García Márquez is a Colombian novelist, short-story writer, screenwriter and journalist, known affectionately as Gabo throughout Latin America. He is considered one of the most significant authors of the 20th century. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in...
and Carlos Fuentes
Carlos Fuentes
Carlos Fuentes Macías is a Mexican writer and one of the best-known living novelists and essayists in the Spanish-speaking world. He has influenced contemporary Latin American literature, and his works have been widely translated into English and other languages.-Biography:Fuentes was born in...
. In his book The New Novel in Latin America (La Nueva Novela), Fuentes offers an in-depth literary criticism of the positive influence Vargas Llosa's work has had on Latin American literature. Indeed, for the literary critic Gerald Martin
Gerald Martin
Gerald Martin is a prolific critic of Latin American fiction. He is particularly known for his work on the Guatemalan author Miguel Ángel Asturias and on the Colombian Gabriel García Márquez, both of whom are winners of the Nobel Prize for Literature....
, writing in 1987, Vargas Llosa was "perhaps the most successful [. . . and] certainly the most controversial Latin American novelist of the past twenty-five years".
Most of Vargas Llosa's narratives have been translated into multiple languages, marking his international critical success. Vargas Llosa is also noted for his substantial contribution to journalism, an accomplishment characteristic of few other Latin American writers. He is recognized among those who have most consciously promoted literature in general, and more specifically the novel itself, as avenues for meaningful commentary about life. During his career, he has written more than a dozen novels and many other books and stories, and, for decades, he has been a voice for Latin American literature. He has won numerous awards for his writing, from the 1959 Premio Leopoldo Alas and the 1962 Premio Biblioteca Breve to the 1993 Premio Planeta
Premio Planeta
The Premio Planeta de Novela is a Spanish literary prize, awarded since 1952 by the Spanish publisher Grupo Planeta to an original novel written in Spanish . It is one of about 16 literary prizes given by Planeta....
(for Death in the Andes) and the Jerusalem Prize
Jerusalem Prize
The Jerusalem Prize for the Freedom of the Individual in Society is a biennial literary award given to writers whose works have dealt with themes of human freedom in society. It is awarded at the Jerusalem International Book Fair, and the recipient usually delivers an address when accepting the award...
in 1995. The literary critic Harold Bloom
Harold Bloom
Harold Bloom is an American writer and literary critic, and is Sterling Professor of Humanities at Yale University. He is known for his defense of 19th-century Romantic poets, his unique and controversial theories of poetic influence, and his prodigious literary output, particularly for a literary...
has included his novel The War of the End of the World
The War of the End of the World
The War of the End of the World is a 1981 novel written by Peruvian novelist Mario Vargas Llosa. It is a novelization of the War of Canudos conflict in late 19th-century Brazil.-Plot summary:...
in his list of essential literary works in the Western Canon
Western canon
The term Western canon denotes a canon of books and, more broadly, music and art that have been the most important and influential in shaping Western culture. As such, it includes the "greatest works of artistic merit." Such a canon is important to the theory of educational perennialism and the...
. An important distinction he has received is the 1994 Miguel de Cervantes Prize
Miguel de Cervantes Prize
The Miguel de Cervantes Prize , established in 1976, is awarded annually to honour the lifetime achievement of an outstanding writer in the Spanish language. The prize is similar to the Booker Prize, with its candidates from Commonwealth countries, in that it rewards authors from any...
, considered the most important accolade in Spanish-language literature and awarded to authors whose "work has contributed to enrich, in a notable way, the literary patrimony of the Spanish language". Vargas Llosa also received the 2005 Irving Kristol Award
Irving Kristol Award
The Irving Kristol Award is the highest honor conferred by the American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research.The award is given for "notable intellectual or practical contributions to improved public policy and social welfare" and named in honor of Irving Kristol. It replaced the Francis...
from the American Enterprise Institute
American Enterprise Institute
The American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research is a conservative think tank founded in 1943. Its stated mission is "to defend the principles and improve the institutions of American freedom and democratic capitalism—limited government, private enterprise, individual liberty and...
and was the 2008 recipient of the Harold and Ethel L. Stellfox Visiting Scholar and Writers Award at Dickinson College
Dickinson College
Dickinson College is a private, residential liberal arts college in Carlisle, Pennsylvania. Originally established as a Grammar School in 1773, Dickinson was chartered September 9, 1783, five days after the signing of the Treaty of Paris, making it the first college to be founded in the newly...
.
A number of Vargas Llosa's works have been adapted for the screen, including The Time of the Hero and Captain Pantoja and the Special Service (both by the Peruvian director Francisco Lombardi) and The Feast of the Goat (by Vargas Llosa's cousin, Luis Llosa
Luis Llosa
Luis Llosa is a Peruvian film director. He is the cousin of the Peruvian novelist Mario Vargas Llosa.-Selected filmography:* Crime Zone * Sniper * Eight Hundred Leagues on the Amazon * Fire on the Amazon...
). Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter
Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter
Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter is the fifth novel by Mario Vargas Llosa. It was published by Editorial Seix Barral, S.A., Spain, in 1977. Set in Peru during the 1950s, it is the story of an 18 year old student who falls for a 32 year old divorcee...
was turned into the English-language film, Tune in Tomorrow
Tune in Tomorrow
Tune In Tomorrow is a 1990 film comedy directed by John Amiel.It is based on the Mario Vargas Llosa novel Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter, and was released under that name in many countries...
. The Feast of the Goat has also been adapted as a theatrical play by Jorge Alí Triana, a Colombian playwright and director.
Fiction
- 1959 – Los jefes (The Cubs and Other Stories, 1979)
- 1963 – La ciudad y los perros (The Time of the HeroThe Time of the HeroThe Time of the Hero was the first novel published by Peruvian writer Mario Vargas Llosa. Set among a community of cadets in a Lima military school , it is notable for its experimental and complex employment of multiple perspectives...
, 1966) - 1966 – La casa verde (The Green HouseThe Green HouseThe Green House is the second novel by the Peruvian writer Mario Vargas Llosa, published in 1966. The novel covers more than forty years...
, 1968) - 1969 – Conversación en la catedral (Conversation in the CathedralConversation in the CathedralConversation in the Cathedral is a 1969 novel by Peruvian writer and essayist Mario Vargas Llosa, recognized as one of his major works. It is a portrayal of Peru under the dictatorship of Manuel A. Odría in the 1950s, and deals with the lives of characters from different social strata...
, 1975) - 1973 – Pantaleón y las visitadoras (Captain Pantoja and the Special ServiceCaptain Pantoja and the Special ServiceCaptain Pantoja and the Special Service is a relatively short comedic novel by acclaimed Peruvian writer Mario Vargas Llosa....
, 1978) - 1977 – La tía Julia y el escribidor (Aunt Julia and the ScriptwriterAunt Julia and the ScriptwriterAunt Julia and the Scriptwriter is the fifth novel by Mario Vargas Llosa. It was published by Editorial Seix Barral, S.A., Spain, in 1977. Set in Peru during the 1950s, it is the story of an 18 year old student who falls for a 32 year old divorcee...
, 1982) - 1981 – La guerra del fin del mundo (The War of the End of the WorldThe War of the End of the WorldThe War of the End of the World is a 1981 novel written by Peruvian novelist Mario Vargas Llosa. It is a novelization of the War of Canudos conflict in late 19th-century Brazil.-Plot summary:...
, 1984) - 1984 – Historia de Mayta (The Real Life of Alejandro Mayta, 1985)
- 1986 – ¿Quién mató a Palomino Molero? (Who Killed Palomino Molero?, 1987)
- 1987 – El hablador (The StorytellerThe Storyteller (novel)The Storyteller is a novel by Peruvian author Mario Vargas Llosa. The story tells of a man who leaves civilization and becomes a "storyteller" for the Machiguenga Indians...
, 1989) - 1988 – Elogio de la madrastra (In Praise of the StepmotherIn Praise of the StepmotherIn Praise of the Stepmother is an erotic novel by Peruvian writer Mario Vargas Llosa, winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2010. Published in 1988, it is about a sexually open couple whose fantasies lead them to the edge of morality.- Story :...
, 1990) - 1993 – Lituma en los Andes (Death in the AndesDeath in the AndesDeath in the Andes is a 1993 novel by the Peruvian Mario Vargas Llosa. It follows the character Lituma, from Who Killed Palomino Molero?, after being transferred to the rural town of Naccos.-Plot:...
, 1996) - 1997 – Los cuadernos de don Rigoberto (Notebooks of Don Rigoberto, 1998)
- 2000 – La fiesta del chivo (The Feast of the GoatThe Feast of the GoatThe Feast of the Goat is a novel by the Peruvian Nobel Prize in Literature laureate Mario Vargas Llosa. The book is set in the Dominican Republic and portrays the assassination of Dominican dictator Rafael Leónidas Trujillo, and its aftermath, from two distinct standpoints a generation apart:...
, 2002) - 2003 – El paraíso en la otra esquina (The Way to ParadiseThe Way to ParadiseThe Way to Paradise is a novel published by Mario Vargas Llosa in 2003.The novel is a historical double biography of Post-Impressionist painter Paul Gauguin and his grandmother Flora Tristan, one of the founders of feminism. The book is divided into 11 chapters, each alternating narratives of...
, 2003) - 2006 – Travesuras de la niña mala (The Bad GirlThe Bad GirlThe Bad Girl, originally published in 2006 in Spanish as Travesuras de la niña mala, is a novel by Peruvian author Mario Vargas Llosa.Journalist Kathryn Harrison approvingly argues that the book is a rewrite of the French modernist Gustave Flaubert's classic novel Madame Bovary...
, 2007) - 2010 – El sueño del celta (The Dream of the CeltThe Dream of the CeltThe Dream of the Celt is a novel written by Hispano-Peruvian writer and 2010 Nobel laureate in literature Mario Vargas Llosa....
, forthcoming 2012)
Non-fiction
- 1971 – García Márquez: historia de un deicidio (García Márquez: Story of a Deicide)
- 1975 – La orgía perpetua: Flaubert y "Madame Bovary" (The Perpetual Orgy)
- 1990 – La verdad de las mentiras: ensayos sobre la novela moderna (A Writer's Reality)
- 1993 – El pez en el agua. Memorias (A Fish in the WaterA Fish in the WaterA Fish in the Water, originally published as El pez en el agua in 1993, is the memoir of Peruvian writer Mario Vargas Llosa. It covers two main periods of his life: the first comprising the years between 1946 and 1958, describes his childhood and the beginning of his writing career in Europe...
) - 1996 – La utopía arcaica: José María Arguedas y las ficciones del indigenismo (Archaic utopia: José María Arguedas and the fictions of indigenismo)
- 1997 – Cartas a un joven novelista (Letters to a Young Novelist)
- 2001 – El lenguaje de la pasión (The Language of Passion)
- 2004 – La tentación de lo imposible (The Temptation of the Impossible)
- 2007 – El Pregón de Sevilla (as Introduction for LOS TOROS)
- 2009 – El Viaje a la Ficcion
Drama
- 1952 – La huida del inca
- 1981 – La señorita de Tacna
- 1983 - Kathie y el hipopótamo
- 1986 - La Chunga
- 1993 - El loco de los balcones
- 1996 - Ojos bonitos, cuadros feos
- 2007 - Odiseo y Penélope
- 2008 - Al pie del Támesis
- 2010 - Las mil y una noches
Vargas Llosa's essays and journalism have been collected as Contra viento y marea, issued in three volumes (1983, 1986, and 1990). A selection has been edited by John King and translated and published as Making Waves.
2003 - "The Language of Passion"
External links
- The Persistence of Memory
- Mario Vargas Llosa papers at Princeton UniversityPrinceton UniversityPrinceton University is a private research university located in Princeton, New Jersey, United States. The school is one of the eight universities of the Ivy League, and is one of the nine Colonial Colleges founded before the American Revolution....
- Featured author: Mario Vargas Llosa at The New York TimesThe New York TimesThe New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
, 28 June 1998
- Featured author: Mario Vargas Llosa at The New York Times
- Interview transcript with Ramona Koval, ABC Radio National, Edinburgh International Book Festival, August 2003¨
- Mario Vargas Llosa and the Relationship Between Politics and Journalism, Andrew Wiles, 10 September 2010
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