The award of the 2010 Nobel Prize for Literature to Mario Vargas Llosa marks the Academy's recognition of one of Latin America's most celebrated authors, one who is not only a great storyteller but also a remarkable essayist, playwright, journalist, cultural commentator, and man of letters. A public intellectual who believes in the necessity of a writer's engagement with the important issues of the day, Mr. Vargas Llosa has been an outspoken political activist, who, like Vaclav Havel, once ran for the office of President in his country, Peru. Although he lost narrowly and later left active politics, his firm belief in the power of the pen to shape politics and culture underlies the bulk of his writing. According to the Nobel citation, he was being honoured “for his cartography of structures of power and his trenchant images of the individual's resistance, revolt and defeat.” Mr. Vargas Llosa, the first South American writer to win the Nobel since the great Gabriela Garcia Marquez was given the Prize in 1982, has written more than 30 novels, plays, and essays. Among the most acclaimed are Conversation in the Cathedral, The Green House, The Feast of the Goat and the brilliant semi-autobiographical work, Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter. His journalism and critical writings have been compiled into compelling anthologies that reflect what a literary critic calls a “fascination with the human craving for freedom and the liberation conferred by art and imagination.”
Critics have also written of Mr. Vargas Llosa's persistent desire to demonstrate to the reading world “the important place of fiction and literature in the life of nations.” And as he wrote in a magazine essay, “without it, the critical mind, which is the real engine of historical change and the best protector of liberty, would suffer an irreparable loss.” While storytelling is largely the way through which he engages with this world, Mr. Vargas Llosa's concerns are very real; his complex narrative structures and the philosophical underpinnings of the issues he raises are very current, whether it is about the struggles of Peru or of the wider world. His political views, however, changed over the years and he moved from the left to a centrist-right position, campaigning for the presidency of Peru as a proponent of a market economy and free trade. He later left Peru for seven years, explaining in an interview that his ideal was “to become a citizen of the world” and that “if there is for me a fundamental idea of civilisation, it is this.” While his importance in the cultural life of his country has not diminished in any way, in winning the Nobel the writer has obviously achieved his dream of becoming a true world citizen.
Keywords: Vargas Llosa, Nobel literature prize
It is highly appreciable that a cosmopolitan has been awarded Noble Prize for Literature. It is obvious to know that he stands above all narrow-mindedness and selfishness. His explicit example is a guiding principle at this hour of time to tread.
The writer is truely a world citizen. As he demonstrates the meaning of true freedom of mind regardless of the limitations of the world in which we live, in his writings
A well written and highly informative article about the Nobel Prize winner for Literature Mr.Vargas Llosa.
Mario Vargas Llosa has become a Nobel Laureate in Literature but he still proved that he is a combating political activist as well while denouncing threats to democracy and freedom in South America. In his news conference he pointedly singled out the Latin American nations Cuba and Venezuela deploring regimes representing “a step backward for a hemisphere emerging from an era of strongman- leaders. That trend, which is an authoritarian, anti-democratic trend, is a trend that seems on its way out, for which there is less support all the time," He utilized the opportunity to assail Hugo Chavez of Venezuela and Fidel Castro of Cuba.
Vargas Llosa burst onto the literary scene in the early 1960s with the novel "La Ciudad y los Perros ( in Spanish)/The Time of the Hero" which had drawn his own experiences at a Peruvian military academy . The book infuriated the military and thousands copies of the novel were burned by authorities. Military’s top brass condemned the Book calling it false and the author a communist. May be it was an attempt by him to refurbish the image of Peruvian armed forces while he sanitized the uniform in "Captain Pantoja and the Special Service" and deconstructed Dominican dictator Rafael Trujillo in "Feast of the Goat."
Upon losing Presidential elections in 1990 against Alberto Fujimori and disheartened due to the public approval for authoritarian rule, Vargas Llosa left native Peru and migrated to Europe by taking Spanish citizenship. Still he maintained a penthouse apartment in the Peruvian capital of Lima overlooking the Pacific coast, but kept low profile during visits after Fujimori entangled into the corruption scandal and fled to Japan in 2000.
He is the first South American winner of the $1.5 million Nobel Prize in literature since Colombia's Gabriel Garcia Marquez won the same in 1982, and the first Spanish-language writer to win since Mexico’s Octavio Paz in 1990.
Though Vargas Llosa's writing is notable throughout Latin America, but when he shifted from the left toward an embrace of the free market, he went at odds with left-leaning Latin American intellectuals. Despite being an early supporter of the Cuban revolution led by Fidel Castro, later on Varges Llosa became disillusioned and criticized Castro's Cuba.
Vargas Llosa had remained active in Peruvian politics and helped to win support for building a museum in memory of around 70,000 people exterminated in Peru's 1980-2000 conflict with Shining Path rebels. He rightly intervened and objected to a government legislative decree that would have put a statute of limitations on crimes against humanity. As a sign of protest, he tendered his resignation from the Position of head of the committee overseeing the design and construction of the museum. The government had to rescind the announcement.
The controversies on his Books, especially in 'La Ciudad y los Perros' have already faded; Vargas Llosa's books are widely read now at the Leoncio Prado Military Academy where he had undergone training in his young age.
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