In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

195 Chapter 11 The Private and the Public Mario Vargas Llosa on Literature and Politics En cierta forma, el creador se plantea así una verdadera duplicidad, o por lo menos una terrible tensión: quiere ser fiel a una determinada concepción política y al mismo tiempo necesita ser fiel a su vocación. Si ambas coinciden, perfecto, pero si divergen se plantea la tensión, se produce el desgarramiento. No debemos, empero, rehuir ese desgarramiento; debemos, por el contrario, asumirlo plenamente y de ese mismo desgarramiento, hacer literatura, hacer creación. Es una opción difícil, complicada, torturada, si se quiere, pero imprescindible. [The creative writer is pulled in two directions, or at least he experiences a terrible tension; he wants to be faithful to a given political conception and at the same time needs to be faithful to his calling. If both coincide, all is well; if they diverge, an inner tension emerges. This tension, however, must not be avoided. It must be faced head on, and the writer must use the contradiction to make literature, to create. It is a difficult option, tortured perhaps, yet inevitable.] —Mario Vargas Llosa T his chapter examines the views of Peruvian writer Mario Vargas Llosa on literature, politics, and the interface between the two. A dual citizen of Peru and Spain, Vargas Llosa is an engagé intellectual who has been wrestling with the question of the relations between literature and politics throughout his career. Like many of the great literary intellectuals of his generation in Latin America, he belongs to the endangered species of the literary and public intellectual, for whom culture and politics were united at birth and should not be separated. He is a pure liberal who operates in a social stratum (the literary intelligentsia) and a political culture (that of countries such as Peru, Mexico, Spain, and France) where the intellectual culture of liberalism is generally regarded with some suspicion and even hostility.1 Although specialists of Vargas Llosa tend to be appreciative of both his oeuvre and his ideas, Vargas Llosa is routinely considered and dismissed as a right-wing ideologue by Latin Americanists in general and specialists of Latin American literature in particular. Vargas Llosa is a fervent advocate of democratic capitalism and a vehement enemy of 196 Gunshots at the Fiesta collectivism in all its forms (that is to say, whenever the individual is defined by “su pertenencia a una clase social, una raza, una cultura o una religión” [by his belonging to a social class, a race, a culture, or a religion]).2 One can hardly think of any other well-known Latin American writer or intellectual who articulates such views.3 Furthermore, Vargas Llosa adopts what most literary critics regard as old-fashioned views on the place of literature in society.4 Vargas Llosa openly spurns the post-structuralist academic trends that have dominated North American cultural studies for two decades.5 In sum, it is easy to understand why the Peruvian writer is the bête noire of many in today’s république des lettres. And yet, his itinerary is rich in situations and intellectual dilemmas. His positions on politics and culture are sophisticated and unorthodox. His forceful public pronouncements tend to lure the reader away from subtleties and tensions in Vargas Llosa’s thinking. To begin with, Vargas Llosa’s social and political thought is made of an impressive mix of political and philosophical ingredients, starting with his infatuation with the writings of Peruvian authors José Carlos Mariátegui and César Moro, and later on with European thinkers such as JeanPaul Sartre, Georges Bataille, Albert Camus, Isaiah Berlin, Karl Popper, Fernand Braudel, Ludwig von Mises, and Friedrich Hayek. No doubt his views were also shaped by literary influences, in spite of the fact that (or precisely because) most of them are famously indifferent or hostile to the concept of the politically committed writer.6 Vargas Llosa is a fairly consistent and outspoken public intellectual without being as predictable as one might think.7 At times, he unwittingly provides illustrations for what he sees as the “muy peruana manera de componer las cosas confundiendo a los contrarios en una amalgama de ambigüedad” [very Peruvian way of fixing things by conflating opposites in an amalgam of am­ biguity].8 Very Peruvian or very literary? TheGodsThatFailed Like most Latin American intellectuals of his generation, Vargas Llosa’s first political passion was dedicated to revolutionary socialism, and this before...

Share