Peruvian Vargas Llosa wins literature Nobel


STOCKHOLM, (Reuters)
– Peruvian writer and one-time  presidential candidate Mario Vargas Llosa, a chronicler of  human struggles against authoritarianism in Latin America, won  the 2010 Nobel prize for literature yesterday.
A leading member of a generation of writers behind the  resurgence in Latin American literature in the 1960s, Vargas  Llosa was a champion of the left in his youth and later evolved  into an outspoken conservative, a shift that infuriated much of  Latin America’s leftist intelligentsia.

“I hope they gave it to me more for my literary work and  not my political opinions,” the 74-year-old author said at a  news conference in New York.

“I think Latin American literature deals with power and  politics and this was inevitable. We in Latin America have not  solved basic problems such as freedom,” Vargas Llosa said.

“Literature is an expression of life and you can’t  eradicate politics from life,” he added.
The Swedish Academy awarding the 10 million crown ($1.5  million) prize said Vargas Llosa had been chosen “for his  cartography of structures of power and his trenchant images of  the individual’s resistance, revolt and defeat.”
The author of more than 30 novels, plays and essays, Vargas  Llosa made his international breakthrough in the 1960s with  “The Time of the Hero”, a novel about cadets at a military  academy in Lima. Many of his works are built on his experiences  of life in Peru in the late 1940s and the 1950s.

Long tipped as a potential winner, Vargas Llosa is Latin  America’s first Nobel winner for literature since Mexico’s  Octavio Paz took the prize in 1990. He joins winners from the  region that include Pablo Neruda of Chile and Colombian Gabriel  Garcia Marquez — who Vargas Llosa famously punched in 1976.

The public punch is at the center of one of the literary  world’s best-known feuds. The two friends ceased speaking to  each other afterward and for decades the reason for the fight  has been a mystery.

A photographer who captured Garcia Marquez — and his black  eye — wrote about the incident years later and suggested it  concerned Vargas Llosa’s wife.

In the 1970s, Vargas Llosa, a one-time supporter of the  Cuban revolution, denounced Fidel Castro’s communism, maddening  many of his leftist literary colleagues like Garcia Marquez.

The writer said he never had any desire to become a  politician when he ran for president in 1990 as Peru battled  high inflation and the Maoist Shining Path insurgency. He lost  to Alberto Fujimori, who defeated inflation and the guerrillas  but is now in jail for human rights abuses.

Frustrated after his unsuccessful election run, Vargas  Llosa went to live in Spain but remains influential in Latin  America as an acclaimed writer and columnist.

Vargas Llosa said he took out Spanish citizenship because  Fujimori sought to strip him of his Peruvian nationality.
Vargas Llosa has become a staunch supporter of free markets  and has harshly criticized a new wave of populist left-wing  leaders led by Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez.

Yesterday, the writer repeated his criticism of  dictatorship, both left-wing and right-wing, and praised Brazil  and Uruguay as leftist governments that respect democracy.

“What is a step back is that we still have Cuba and  Venezuela, though I think this authoritarian, antidemocratic  current is losing popular support,” he said in New York.

Vargas Llosa said he was happy to see the opposition  advance in recent congressional elections in Venezuela.
STORYTELLER

The Nobel committee woke up Vargas Llosa with the news  before dawn in the United States, where he is teaching Latin  American literature at Princeton University for a semester.

Peter Englund, permanent secretary of the Nobel committee,  praised the writer’s story-telling prowess and said he was on  of the great authors in the Spanish-speaking world.

“He has a number of masterpieces in narration because  essentially he’s a narrator, he’s a storyteller. My goodness,  what a storyteller!” Englund said in Stockholm.