Mithyl Banymandhub
Jorge Mario Pedro Vargas Llosa breathed his last at the age of 89 in Lima, Peru, on April 13, 2025. He has bequeathed to posterity, specially lovers of the written word, a variety of literary works. In his lifetime he was a much respected novelist, journalist, playwright, essayist and short story writer. He is considered as one of the most significant Latin American writers. Some literary critics are of the opinion that he has had “a more substantial international impact and worldwide audience than any other writer of the Latin American boom of the early 1960’s”.
Exposure to a Brutal Reality
Vargas Llosa, the son of Ernesto Vargas Maldonado and Dona Llosa Ureta, was born in Arequipa, Peru, on March 28, 1936. At the age of ten he was admitted to a parochial school, the activities of which he depicted in Los Cachorros (1967, The Cubs in The Cubs and other stories, 1979) a short novel. His Father did not appreciate his wish to become a writer. As a result, he joined the Leonicco Prado, a Pervian government military boarding school which he attended from 1950 to 1952. There, he was exposed to a brutal reality that marked him to the core.
Vargas Llosa expressed his experiences in the Leoncio Prado in his novel La ciudad y los perres (1963: The Time of the Hero, 1966), the publication of which provoked a serious official reaction in Peru. After spending two years in the Leoncio Prado, Vargas Llosa completed high school in Piura, where he instigated student unrest and a strike that later served as a basis for his short story Los Jefes (The Leaders). This short narrative won for him the Leopoldo Alas Prize in Spain. In addition, in Piura he wrote his first play, La huida del Inca (The Flight of the Inca).
Advocate of Socialist Causes
In 1953 Vargas Llosa enrolled in the school of Law at San Marcos University in Lima. He became an advocate of socialist causes during his stay there, although communist ideology turned out to be disappointing to him. In 1955, when he reached the age of nineteen, he married Julia Urquidi, one of his uncle’s sisters-in-law. The economic pressures brought about by this marriage were magnificently re-created in the novel Latía Julia y el escribidor (1977; Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter, 1982).
By 1957 his short stories were appearing in journals and newspapers and he was editing several literary journals. In 1958 his short narrative El desafio (The challenge) was awarded the first prize in a competition sponsored by the French journal La Revue Française, and he travelled to Paris. At this time, he also travelled through the Peruvian Amazon jungle along the upper Marañón river, which gave him a culture shock but made him appreciate the inhabitants of that remote locality. His second novel, La Casa Verde (1966; The Green House, 1968) and El Hablador (1987; The Storyteller, 1989) reflect the observations made during this and another expedition to the jungle in 1964.
In 1958, he obtained a scholarship to the University of Madrid, Spain. His doctoral thesis focused on Gabriel Garcia Marquez, an outstanding Latin American writer of his generation who won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1982. After completing his thesis, he moved to Paris and requested another scholarship from Peru which was not granted.
Self-Imposed Exile
He began to work for the French radio-television network, which provided him the opportunity to come in contact with other prominent Latin American authors like Julio Cortázar and Jorge Luis Borges from Argentina, Alejo Carpentier from cuba. Miguel Ángel Asturias, a Nobel Laureate from Guatemala and Carlos Fuentes from Mexico. As this time of his life, he began a self-imposed exile that would last till 1974.
In 1963, Vargas Llosa divorced his wife, Julia Urquidi and the following year married his cousin Patricia Llosa. In 1965, he received an invitation from Cuba to judge the literary competition sponsored by the journal Casa de las Américas and became a member of its editorial board. After the birth of his first son, Alvaro, in 1966, he moved from Paris to London with his family. There, he taught literature at Queen Mary’s College. In 1967, he travelled to Caracas to receive the Rómulo Gallegos award for his novel The Green House. As his fame grew, he travelled worldwide and began to participate in the International PEN Club (the Association of Poets, Playwrights, Editors, Essayists and Novelists). He was elected its president in 1976. His second son, Gonzalo, was born in 1967, a year that he spent lecturing in Western Europe, the then Soviet Union, and the United States. That year he was also writer-in-residence at Washington State University, where he began to review his voluminous novel Conversación en La Catedral (1969; Conversation in the Cathedral, 1975). In 1969, he taught at the university of Puerto Rico at Rio Piedras, and in 1970, he settled in Barcelona, Spain.
A Prolific Decade
The decade of the 1970’s was a prolific one for Vargas Llosa. In 1971, he published his critical essays García Márquez: Historia de un déicidio and Historia Secreta de una novela. In addition, his fourth novel, Pantaléon Y Las Visitadores (1973; Captain Panoja and the Special Service, 1978), was published in a first edition of one hundred thousand copies and was successfully adapted to the cinema. Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter, which originally appeared in 1977, was also adapted for the screen. In 1975, he produced another acclaimed volume of critical essays, La orgía perpetua: Flaubert Y “Madame Bovary” (The Perpetual Orgy: Flaubert and “Madame Bovary, 1986). In the late 1970’s, several journals dedicated issues to the study of his works, and in 1977 the University of Oklahoma dedicated to him its sixth Oklahoma Conference on Writers of the Hispanic World.
His novel La guerra del fin del mundo came out of press in 1981 (The War of the End of the World, 1984). Vargas also sustained a keen interest in the theatre. His two-act play La Señorita de Tacna (The Young Lady from Tacna, 1990), which opened in Buenos Aires and in Lima in 1981, was awarded the Annual Argentine Prize of Literacy Criticism. In 1983, his play Kathie y el hipopótamo (Kathie and the Hippopotamus, 1990) was equally successful. In 1980, his book Elogio de la madrastra (In Praise of the stepmother, 1990) was enthusiastically received.
The Cuban Revolution
Like many other Latin American intellectuals, Vargas Llosa was initially a supporter of the Cuban revolutionary government of Fidel Castro. He studied Marxism in depth during his student days at the University and was later influenced by communist ideals after the success of the Cuban Revolution. However, he gradually realized that socialism was incompatible with what he considered to be general liberties and freedom. He identified himself with liberalism instead of left-wing political ideologies. He sought the presidency of Peru in 1889, but he was defeated.
Interest in Literature
Vargas Llosa was considered a prodigy among the Latin American authors who emerged during the so-called literary boom of the 1960’s. His interest in literature started very early. He spoke with nostalgia about the pleasure that he derived from perusing the adventures of Tom Sawyer, Sinbad the Sailor and other stories. During his adolescence he immersed himself in the French novel. His readings opened to him the characteristics of modern fiction and he began to assess the effects of narrative techniques. His readings also introduced him to the works of Henry Miller, James Joyce, Ernest Hemingway, Marcel Proust, André Malraux, Jorge Luis Borges and William Faulkner.
An overview of Vargas Llosa’s works provides an insight in his narrative techniques and themes. In his first novel, The Time of the Hero, the story of a young cadet, Vargas Llosa cinematographic techniques, multiple character point of view, disturbed chronology and incorporation of taboo language achieve the portrayal of the “marginalized sectors of society”. The military academy Leoncio Prado, where the action happens became a fictional macrocosm of Peruvian society and its ills.
By the time this book was published in 1963, its author had become concerned with an important theme – The role of the writer in society. The preoccupation became evident in a speech “Social commitment and the Latin American Writer” that he delivered at a conference held in his honour at the University of Oklahoma in 1977, wherein he stated the difference between Latin American writers and their counterparts from Western Europe and the United States. In order to fulfil their mission, the former must rigorously uphold their artistic values and their originality to enrich the language and the culture of their countries. On the other hand, Latin American writers must also assume a social responsibility.
His social preoccupation, along with his craftmanship, were also evident in his second novel The Green House. It is a complex work developed around five different plot lines which take place simultaneously in two Peruvian locales. Although the novel appears to be a “structural puzzle which the reader has to solve”, the themes of frustration and victimisation are palpable. Individuals are exploited for economic gain or for religious reasons.
The Victimisation of an entire generation by means of political oppression is the main theme of the next novel, Conversation in the Cathedral. This work provides a panoramic view of Peruvian society during the dictatorship of General Manuel Udria from 1948 to 1956. The reader becomes aware of the brutality of this regime spread all through Peru. Technically speaking, the novel provides on a larger scale some of the stylistic and structural characteristics of Vargas Llosa’s previous novels. Though the plot development appears to be fragmented and the characters’ relationships became extremely complex at times, the theme that emerges constitutes an indictment against political regimes “that brings about social depravity”.
The Creation of Fiction
In some of his later works yet another preoccupation surfaces, an insistent enquiring into the nature of writing. The author investigates the process of writing, the creation of fiction and the difference between the genuine writer and the scribbler.
A new theme appears In praise of a stepmother. In it the reader is confronted with the presence of evil in innocence and the difficulties of utopia. It narrates the story of a man who believes he has a perfect grip on life until his wicked child seduces his stepmother.
It can be said of his novels that they move from extremely complex structures to simpler works with substantial themes that are more appealing to the general public. His works demonstrate that he has successfully developed a variety of themes. Social injustice, political oppression that brings about societal decadence, the creative act of writing, the dangers of fanaticism and utopias and the intrinsic value found in primitive cultures are some of his major preoccupations. He sees the mission of the Latin American writer as one of a spiritual nature, through which life may improve for all. He was awarded the Nobel prize in Literature in 2010.
Bibliography
- Chase, S. Cida. Mario Vargas Llosa. New York: Magill’s survey of world literature,1993.
- Rossmar, Charles and Allen Warren Friedman, eds. Mario Vargas Llosa: A collection of critical essays. Austin University of Texas Press, 1978.
- Williams, Raymond L. Mario Vargas Llosa: New York: Frederick Ungar, 1986.
