The Guardian Profile Mario Vargas Llosa Essay — страница 5

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novel. I was fascinated. He read it without humour, as puritans read books.” For the author, the difference between erotica and pornography is “purely artistic: if it’s well written and persuasive it’s erotic; if it’s mediocre it becomes vulgar and pornographic”. But in Valenzuela’s view Don Rigoberto is “not pornographic but boring. It’s critical of a male perspective but it’s not erotic or sincere.” During Vargas Llosa’s political campaign his opponents smeared him as a “pornographic slanderer” and had those novels read out on TV. Vargas Llosa has always said the social obligations of the Latin American writer are more onerous than those of their counterparts in Europe. He was moved to protest in 1987 against President Alan García’s plan to

nationalise the Peruvian financial system. Vargas Llosa’s rally drew 120,000 people and became the start of a three-year presidential campaign for the Democratic Front coalition. He had death threats and abusive phone calls. His wife tried to dissuade him from running. In his memoir he concedes that she may have been right to say he was drawn by “the adventure, the illusion of living an experience of excitement and risk, of writing the great novel in real life.” Yet he maintains that he entered politics “pushed by civic and moral reasons: I thought something should be done to preserve a fragile democratic system which was collapsing because of terrorism, corruption, hyperinflation.” Though he led the polls his initial majority was not enough to secure a mandate. In the

second round, in June 1990, Fujimori was backed by the incumbent government. “I learned that the important things in politics are not just ideas and values but also sordid manoeuvring and intrigues,” he says. “A dirty war is always going on – it’s just more disguised in advanced democracies. It was depressing, not because I lost but because of the way a whole society could be so easily manipulated… I didn’t lie. I said we needed radical reforms and social sacrifices and in the beginning it worked. But then came the dirty war, presenting my reforms as something that would destroy jobs. It was very effective, especially with the poorest of society. In Latin America we prefer promises to reality.” In Gott’s view “his novels had some sensitivity towards the great

majority in Peru, who are mostly Indian or mestizo. But as a politician he identified himself with the oligarchic elite.” Vargas Llosa’s “kitchen cabinet” (his son Alvaro was his press spokesman, his cousin campaign manager) was known as the “Royal Family”. After his defeat, he was insulted in the streets with the words, “Get out, gringo”. “I was not a good politician,” he says. “It was damaging to be associated with some political parties. Fujimori presented himself as the underdog, though he was very rich.” The loser was also criticised in Peru for leaving the country within hours of his defeat and taking up Spanish nationality. “Peruvians have made it a sport to hate Vargas Llosa,” says Stavans. Others point out that this choice was made long before

and that Madrid is the crucial publishing centre for Spanish-language writers now that Mexico City and Buenos Aires have collapsed. Vargas Llosa is a self-confessed “cosmopolitan and expatriate who has always detested nationalism” (he even says “Thatcher and the Conservatives have become nationalistic – I wouldn’t vote for them now”). Yet while Gott sees him as a “rootless cosmopolitan in the European tradition – more at home in London or Paris or Barcelona”, Vargas Llosa calls Peru a “constant torment”, his relationship to it “more adulterous than conjugal, full of suspicion, passion and rages”. After Fujimori’s “self-coup” in 1992 his presidential rival urged international sanctions against the regime. Some saw Vargas Llosa as a traitor and he

was accused of tax evasion. “During Fujimori’s first two years I was very discreet,” he says. “But I’ve been against dictatorships all my life. My situation became very difficult: I was persona non grata in Peru, discredited and insulted in the official press – Fujimori controlled everything. It was difficult because I couldn’t respond.” He returned under the dictatorship only for a few days in 1995, for his mother’s funeral. Forced to resign over corruption allegations in 2000, Fujimori, a Japanese Peruvian, fled to Japan while his security chief, Vladimiro Montesinos (whose filmed dirty deals became known as the “Vladivideos”), is held in the same Lima prison as Shining Path’s Guzman. Though there has been a return to democracy, Vargas Llosa’s son