FILE/PROFILE: Former presidential candidate and renowned writer Mario Vargas Llosa wins Nobel Prize for literature

Record ID: 601654

  • Title: FILE/PROFILE: Former presidential candidate and renowned writer Mario Vargas Llosa wins Nobel Prize for literature
  • Date: 8th October 2010
  • Summary: LIMA, PERU (RECENT) (ORIGINALLY 4:3) (REUTERS) (SOUNDBITE) (Spanish) ABELARDO OQUENDO, MEMBER OF PERUVIAN BOARD OF LITERATURE AND FRIEND OF VARGAS LLOSA, SAYING: "It would be a great joy. The Nobel is the most important literary prize in the world and for a Peruvian to win it at least couldn't do anything but make us proud."
  • Embargoed: 23rd October 2010 13:00
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  • Topics: International Relations,Arts / Culture / Entertainment / Showbiz
  • Reuters ID: LVACNA59CMQLYTNIEBRP4O2UYTTV
  • Story Text: Peruvian Mario Vargas Llosa -- literary giant, one-time presidential candidate and controversial icon for Latin American conservatives - won the Nobel prize for literature on Thursday (October 7).
    Best known for writing complex, challenging novels, the 74-year-old who helped put Latin American literature on the map in the 1960s "Boom Generation" is also an intellectual, political commentator, journalist and former human rights abuse investigator.
    Vargas Llosa completed law school in Peru and got a doctorate in philosophy and literature in Madrid. Although he spent much of his life in Europe, his literature was almost always set in Peru and went after issues of classism, racism, corruption and violence in his native country.
    His first novel, The Time of the Hero, was based on his experience at a military school in Lima and was published in 1963 to critical acclaim.
    Passionate and prolific, he has turned out more than 30 novels, plays and essays, including acclaimed novels "The Time of the Hero", "Conversation in the Cathedral", "Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter," inspired by an early marriage, "The Feast of the Goat" about Dominican Republic strongman Rafael Leonidas Trujillo and his latest, "The Way to Paradise" about the French painter Paul Gauguin and his feminist grandmother.
    In Europe, a young Vargas Llosa made close friends with another literary great, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, but their alliance soon degenerated into one of literature's most notorious feuds.
    The two quarreled over Garcia Marquez's alleged tryst with Vargas Llosa's second wife and the Peruvian author even landed a powerful right hook on his Colombia counterpart in a Mexico City cinema in 1976.
    Their differences persisted and were exacerbated as free marketeer Vargas Llosa went against the ideological tide of Latin American intellectuals, drifting to the political right and as sworn leftist Garcia Marquez palled around with Fidel Castro.
    Vargas Llosa's career could have been quite different had he won his bid to become president in 1990 when he faced off against Alberto Fujimori.
    He launched his campaign after spearheading a drive by the opposition to stop then-President Alan Garcia from nationalizing all banks during a bout of hyperinflation.
    Abelardo Oquendo, a friend of the writer and member of Peru's Academy of literature, said the loss calmed Vargas Llosa's political fire.
    "I think his stint in politics was good for him because it was a doubt he had and that experience put him at peace. He can say he's been there, has seen what it's about and can leave it behind."
    After the election loss, Vargas Llosa again abandoned Peru for Europe, writing a scathing memoir in 1993 of political corruption and railing against what he saw as Fujimori's authoritarian rule.
    Vargas Llosa had already won several prestigious literary prizes, including the Cervantes Prize, considered the Spanish language Nobel, and holds honorary PhDs from Harvard, Yale and Oxford.
    "There's a general recognition, that isn't that consistent, of Vargas Llosa's work by different groups, different media sources, different ideologies and in many languages. The number of prizes he's received up until now are a sufficient demonstration of that recognition," Oquendo added.
    Vargas Llosa is seen as an intellectual more comfortable abroad than in his own country, commentating and writing about Peruvian politics.
    But Oquendo said the Nobel makes Peru proud.
    "It would be a great joy. The Nobel is the most important literary prize in the world and for a Peruvian to win it at least couldn't do anything but make us proud," he said.
    At a recent ceremony in his honor in Lima, the tireless author said he finds work invigorating.
    "Work has nothing to do with serving or damnation. On the contrary, it's something that exalts, excites and gives a sense of justification to the life one carries. And that's what writing has been for me," he said.
    He is currently working on a new novel, 'A Naughty Girl's Mischief' - a love story, something he has never tackled before.
    "Hitting the podium with my fist, I assure I am not dead and I'm not considering dying. I have a lot projects going," he said.
    And although Peruvians didn't vote him to the presidency, he is one of the most recognized figures and important voices in Peru.
    "I think he feels the affection there is here, the affection and love that people feel because of the recognition, because of him being one of the most important people in Peru," said film director Francisco Lombardi.
    Often tipped in the past for the Nobel, Vargas Llosa was quoted by the Romanian news agency Rompres as saying the Nobel committee should give $1 to a million writers instead of giving a $1 million to one writer.
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