- Title: Nobel prize winner Vargas Llosa backs Peruvian president Vizcarra
- Date: 8th October 2019
- Summary: MADRID, SPAIN (OCTOBER 8, 2019) (REUTERS) ***WARNING: CONTAINS FLASH PHOTOGRAPHY*** VARIOUS OF PERUVIAN NOBEL LITERATURE PRIZE WINNER MARIO VARGAS LLOSA ARRIVING AT THE UNVEILING OF HIS NEW BOOK AND SITTING DOWN (SOUNDBITE) (Spanish) PERUVIAN NOBEL LITERATURE PRIZE WINNER MARIO VARGAS LLOSA SAYING: "I absolutely support president Vizcarra on his decision to dissolve congress. He did well closing that shameful Peruvian congress, a congress full of semi-literate lawmakers and crooks, who, furthermore had denied him their confidence twice, as the constitution says (the president can dissolve congress if confidence is denied twice). So the president has acted within the strictest legality and he has done very well. My hope is that in January, when a new congress will be voted, people will vote better than last time when they filled the congress with crooks and semi-literate lawmakers as I have said before." VARIOUS OF VARGAS LLOSA DURING PRESENTATION WITH EDITORIAL DIRECTOR OF 'ALFAGUARA' PILAR REYES (SOUNDBITE) (Spanish) PERUVIAN NOBEL LITERATURE PRIZE WINNER MARIO VARGAS LLOSA SAYING: "My novel illustrates a Latin America of horrors, a Latin America that still lived in barbarism and extraordinary violence. A very attractive world for literature without a doubt, very attractive for literature but it is not attractive in reality because it is a world of injustice, a world of systematic abuse where freedom didn't exist. Freedom was a caricature that was written on the constitutions but in practice didn't exist." VARIOUS OF CEREMONY IN PROGRESS (SOUNDBITE) (Spanish) PERUVIAN NOBEL LITERATURE PRIZE WINNER MARIO VARGAS LLOSA SAYING: "Times are very different. Nowadays in Latin America there are no military dictatorships of that sort, Trujillo, Castillo Armas. That doesn't exist in Latin America today. We have ideological dictatorships which is very different. Cuba, Venezuela are Communist dictatorships, but mainly what we have is very imperfect democracies, very imperfect because they are very corrupt, there's too much populism, demagogy, because nationalism also has repercussions at this time in Latin America. But between dictatorship and democracy there is progress which is very notable." VARIOUS OF CEREMONY IN PROGRESS (SOUNDBITE) (Spanish) PERUVIAN NOBEL LITERATURE PRIZE WINNER MARIO VARGAS LLOSA SAYING: "That dichotomy that existed in the past when I was young, between military dictatorships and the Communist revolution, that has now disappeared in Latin America. Today, only very insignificant groups believe that North Korea, Venezuela or Cuba are models to overcome underdevelopment. You have to be blind or profoundly fanatical to fail to see reality and believe such a thing." VARIOUS OF CEREMONY VARIOUS OF BOOK (SOUNDBITE) (Spanish) PERUVIAN NOBEL LITERATURE PRIZE WINNER MARIO VARGAS LLOSA SAYING: "Today Spain is a modern country, with a modern democracy, with the problems modern democracies have but it is a country that has left behind the tribes and caves. I wished that Latin America would have developed as much as Spain did since the transition (from dictatorship to democracy)." VARGAS LLOSA STANDING UP VARIOS OF VARGAS LLOSA SIGNING AUTOGRAPHS VARIOUS OF VARGAS LLOSA LEAVING
- Embargoed: 22nd October 2019 13:23
- Keywords: Peruvian Nobel prize winner Mario Vargas Llosa
- Location: MADRID, SPAIN
- City: MADRID, SPAIN
- Country: Spain
- Topics: Arts / Culture / Entertainment
- Reuters ID: LVA001B08LVT3
- Aspect Ratio: 16:9
- Story Text:Peruvian author and winner of the 2010 Nobel Literature prize Mario Vargas Llosa said on Tuesday (October 8) he backed Peruvian President Martin Vizcarra's decision to dissolve congress.
"I absolutely support president Vizcarra on his decision to dissolve congress. He did well closing that shameful Peruvian congress, a congress full of semi-literate lawmakers and crooks," the writer said at the launch of his new book "Tiempos Recios" in Madrid.
Vizcarra announced he was dissolving the single-chamber body on October 1 and scheduled new legislative elections for Jan. 26, invoking a rarely-used presidential power that also forced him to dismiss his entire Cabinet.
Vargas Llosa has enchanted readers with his intellectual rigour and beautiful prose for decades but has annoyed much of Latin America's left with his contrarian views.
Years after abandoning leftist ideas that were embraced by many of his Latin America peers, he ran unsuccessfully for president of Peru in 1990 as a conservative trying to save his country from economic chaos and Marxist insurgencies.
Frustrated by his defeat, the writer moved to Spain but has remained influential in Latin America, where he continuously criticizes left wing governments.
On Tuesday he described Latin American democracies as mainly "very imperfect democracies," characterized by corruption, populism, demagogy, and nationalism.
(Production: Juan Antonio Dominguez, Miguel Gutierrez, Catherine Macdonald) - Copyright Holder: REUTERS
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