Mario Vargas Llosa: Or Farewell to an Intransigent

By: Beatrice E. Rangel - 15/04/2025

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I met Mario Vargas Llosa in 1967 when I was still a student at the Central University of Venezuela. Vargas Llosa came to Venezuela to receive the Rómulo Gallegos International Literature Prize. He would later receive the Cervantes Prize and the Nobel Prize in Literature. He was one of the exponents of the Latin American literary boom, a movement spearheaded by Vargas Llosa, Cortázar, Garcia Márquez, and Fuentes. At the time, I was impressed by his incredible ability to break down complex dilemmas and present them with simple, direct language in a conversation. His literary work, in my opinion, had the virtue of being written in simple, direct prose, imbued with two elements: magical realism and suspense, both treated with a refinement similar to that of Alexandre Dumas. His sharp intellect allowed him to escape the Castro conspiracy in Latin America. At one point in his life, he realized that the Havana regime was a poverty-inducing machine to feed the insatiable ego of an autocrat. And he denounced it to the world. From that moment on, he dedicated his life to the fight for freedom. In 2002, he created the International Foundation for Liberty (IFL) to support all leaders and movements that would foster the rule of liberty.

Like many towering figures in Latin American history, Vargas Llosa fell prey to the temptation of politics. While he never achieved the presidency of Peru, his homeland emerged as the political conscience of his country and much of Latin America.

His legacy includes the Vargas Llosa Chair; more than one hundred published works, including more than sixty bestsellers; and the International Endowment for Liberty. His passing seems to portend the continuation of difficult times—to use his own phrase—for the Americas, a region where authoritarianism seems to be advancing.

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