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October 13, 2010 14:50:05 | in art, culture, lifestyle
Mario Vargas Llosa: A Nobel for the Spanish Language
By Ivonne Gordon Vailakis
A great celebration for Peru and all of Latin America recently took place when the Peruvian novelist, Mario Vargas Llosa was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature on Thursday, Oct. 7, 2010. Power and revolt, exuberance of Peruvian and the Latin American landscape are salient themes present in this Peruvian novelist’s literature. At age 74, Vargas Llosa has written over 30 novels, plays and essays. His novels include comedies, murder mysteries, historical novels, and political thrillers. He is considered one of the best and controversial writers of his time.
Vargas Llosa has had an intense journey in the political arena, and is considered by journalists and the general public as an important voice and vision in Latin America. Few writers have proved how the forces of power and politics seep into the reality of our everyday lives in such a convincing way that Vargas Llosa has.
To Vargas Llosa politics and literature are both expressions of life, no matter how ugly the politics are. Outside of Václav Havel, the tenth and last president of Czechoslovakia (1989–92) and the first president of the Czech Republic (1993–2003), no other contemporary writer of his standing has come as close to running a country. In 1990 he was the favorite for president of Peru, but lost to the then-unknown Alberto Fujimori.
Vargas Llosa has by no means shied away from controversy, whether it is politics, literature, or romantic involvements. Without a doubt he can throw a punch and he can write..
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Mario Vargas Llosa:
A Nobel for the Spanish Language
By Ivonne Gordon Vailakis
Mario Vargas Llosa:
A Nobel for the Spanish Language
By Ivonne Gordon Vailakis
Bookstores in Lima selling Vargas Llosa's novels after the Nobel Prize announcement. (Photo: Gustavo Sánchez/Andina) - Living in Peru
His literary works are full of irony, satiric depictions of characters in control of power, playful with the language structures, and as a writer, he questions all structures of power.
In a recent interview he said that: “The Nobel Prize is not only a recognition of one’s work, but also…of the Spanish language in which I write. It is a very energetic, creative modern language that is a common link, a common denominator for at least 500 million people.”
I connect to that notion very easily because every year, I sit and wait for the announcement of the Nobel Literary Prize. Although this may seem like a monumentally anticlimactic task, it is in fact a worthwhile endeavor and one that marks new frontiers and accomplishments for the Spanish language. I am a poet, writer, university professor, and a literary critic. I teach the works of many Nobel Prize winners from Latin America like Vargas Llosa, Gabriel García Márquez, Octavio Paz, and Gabriela Mistral, among others. So when Vargas Llosa was announced as the recent Nobel laureate, it was as if I had won that prize, and I cheerfully announced it to all my students who received the news with a shriek of joy as if they had won also.
I first read Vargas Llosa in the 1980s, starting with Time of the Hero (1963 — the title is literarily translated to "the city and the dogs"), a novel denouncing the abuse of power in a military academy. To this day, this insightful novel continues to be my favorite of this author. Many other works have received critical attention including, The Green House: A Novel (1968), Conversation in the Cathedral (1975) and The War of the End of the World (1984). Most recently, I enjoyed a read through one of his latest novels, The Feast of the Goat (2000) that tells of Rafael Trujillo’s dictatorship in the Dominican Republic. Two decades later, I went from studying Vargas Llosa in the university library, to casually reading a Nobel laureate.
Vargas Llosa rose to literary controversy through his quirky writing of Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter (1977) where he exposes family secrets, and his real-life romance with an older woman, his aunt. This was written in a playful manner with the intention of inserting himself in the theoretical discussions of the times.
Accentuating this image was his continuous feud with the Colombian author and left-leaning fellow Nobel laureate Gabriel García Márquez. Some have said it was an ideological dispute or a romantic one involving Vargas Llosa’s wife. Whatever the reason was, it left the prominent Colombian writer, Márquez, sporting a black eye in a famous photograph captured in the 1970s and reproduced in many newspapers.
He is a writer that has an important voice in the international arena and has a worldwide readership. Now that the long feud with Márquez has been resolved when the Colombian writer wrote congratulating him and said, “Now we are even.”
Indeed, they are even. This marks another Nobel for the Spanish language, a language that links many cultures, many meanings and lives. This marks another conclusion that Vargas Llosa can write and that he can punch.
