This is an archive article published on October 31, 2023

Opinion Mario Vargas Llosa says he will no longer write novels. It is entirely in character

Express View: It has been, in a sense, the central theme of his life and his writing — the ability to grasp the tenor of the moment and move with it

Mario Vargas Llosa, punching incident, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Nobel-Prize-winning Peruvian, Le dedico mi silencio, Jean-Paul Sartre, indian express news

In 1990, 10 years before his Nobel win, Llosa ran for and lost the presidential elections in Peru.

October 31, 2023 07:40 AM IST First published on: Oct 31, 2023 at 07:40 AM IST

Give or take the infamous punching incident that ended his friendship with fellow Latin American great Gabriel Garcia Marquez in 1976 — reportedly over an affair — Nobel-Prize-winning Peruvian writer Mario Vargas Llosa has rarely been one for impracticality. The writer has now announced that his latest novel, Le dedico mi silencio (I Give You My Silence), a tribute to Peru and its distinctive musical tradition, will be his last. At 87 years, time is no longer an ally he can count on. He would, instead, continue working on shorter pieces, including an essay on his teacher, Jean-Paul Sartre.

Through the seven decades of his literary career, that began with the publication of La ciudad y los perros (The Time of the Hero, 1963), Llosa has been a tour de force for his originality and his larger-than-life personality.

One of the architects of the Latin American Boom in the 1960s and ’70s, the writing of Llosa, Marquez, Mexican author Carlos Fuentes and the Argentinian Julio Cortázar, among others, ushered in a modernism that was both deeply political and avant garde in its narrative conventions.

Llosa’s novels such as Conversación en la catedral (Conversation in The Cathedral, 1969), Pantaleón y las visitadoras (Captain Pantoja and the Special Service,1973), La guerra del fin del mundo (The War of the End of the World, 1981) examined power and its ability to corrupt and the steady incursions on liberal values by authoritarian regimes.

In 1990, 10 years before his Nobel win, Llosa ran for and lost the presidential elections in Peru. Interestingly, over the years, his own engagement with politics has moved across the spectrum from radical left to a centrist right. Like his recent decision, here, too, Llosa would cite practicality as his guide to choosing “the lesser of two evils”. It has been, in a sense, the central theme of his life — the ability to grasp the tenor of the moment and move with it.