A writer who never needed social networks to be a trending topic
The literary universe is in mourning, although surely Vargas Llosa is already arguing in the afterlife with Sartre about the “writer’s commitment.” The Peruvian Nobel Prize winner died this Sunday in Lima at the age of 89, leaving behind a work as monumental as its contradictions. His children Álvaro, Gonzalo and Morgana announced the news with a statement as neat as he would have wanted: without public ceremonies, just family, close friends and, of course, a cremation worthy of a character from his novels.
From “At what point did Peru get screwed?” to “At what point did he become immortal?”
Author of phrases that hurt more than a black eye (literally, ask García Márquez), Vargas Llosa was a master of narrative and a born polemicist. Morally progressive but economically neoliberal? Yes, because what fun would it be to be predictable? From The City and the Dogs to The Festival of the Goat, his works portrayed power with the subtlety of a machete. And the Nobel Prize in 2010 only confirmed the obvious: that he was a genius, although it took decades for the Swedish Academy to realize it (could it be that they didn’t forgive him for his flirtation with Thatcher?).
His life was as fictional as his fiction: raised between Bolivia and Peru, exiled in Europe, defeated presidential candidate, lover of his aunt Julia (yes, that story gave rise to a bestseller) and, finally, knight of the Académie Française without writing a line in French. Because, of course, why follow the rules when you can rewrite them?
“I don’t want to become a statue,” he said. And boy did he achieve it: until the end he continued spitting out uncomfortable truths, as in Rough Times, where he questioned US foreign policy with the elegance of someone who knows that immortality is already guaranteed in the pages of his books.
Moral? If you want to be remembered, write like the gods, argue like a mortal and let the scandal follow you like a stray dog (preferably rescued from a pound, like the Batuque of his memoirs).
What’s next? Reread his works, because, as he himself said: “Literature alleviates our perishable condition”. And if you liked this tongue-in-cheek tribute (as he would have preferred), share it! The controversy, after all, is also a tribute.
