Vargas Llosa: A novel can change History

Fully recovered from a loss of voice, but still bruised from a fall the previous day, Mario Vargas Llosa today gave an emotional speech at the Swedish Academy as part of the ceremony for the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2010, reports Juan Cruz.

The 19-page speech, was titled In Praise of Reading and Fiction. The Nobel Laureate began by explaining what reading has meant in his life: "Reading changed dreams into life and life into dreams and placed the universe of literature within reach of the boy I once was," said Vargas Llosa, who recalled how his mother "was moved to tears reading the poems by Amado Nervo and Pablo Neruda."

He thanked several "masters" who helped him when it was not easy to write: Flaubert, Faulkner, Martorell, Cervantes, Dickens, Balzac, Tolstoy, Conrad, Thomas Mann ... "If in this address I were to summon all the writers to whom I owe a few things or a great deal, their shadows would plunge us into darkness."

"Like writing, reading is a protest against the insufficiencies of life. We invented fictions to live in some way the many lives we would like to have when we have just one. A novel, a work of theatrer or an essay... can change the course of history," he said.

Vargas Llosa read his speech in Spanish, slowly, as if the he had all the time in the world. "Good literature erects bridges between different peoples, and by having us enjoy, suffer, or feel surprise, unites us beneath the languages, beliefs, habits, customs, and prejudices that separate us."

The writer mentioned the turbulent times we live in and defended liberal democracy that "with all its limitations, continues to signify political pluralism, coexistence, tolerance, human rights, respect for criticism, legality, free elections, alternation in power, everything that has been taking us out of a savage life and bringing us closer - though we will never attain it - to the beautiful, perfect life literature devises, the one we can deserve only by inventing, writing, and reading it."

The author also condemned "all forms of nationalism." "Nothing has contributed as much as nationalism to Latin America's having been Balkanized and stained with blood in senseless battles and disputes, squandering astronomical resources to purchase weapons instead of building schools, libraries, and hospitals," he said.

Debt

The author also mentioned the debt he owes to Spain, and his longing for his native Arequipa, in Peru.

"I never felt like a foreigner in Europe or, in fact, anywhere. I love Spain as much as Peru, and my debt to her is as great as my gratitude. I have never felt the slightest incompatibility between being Peruvian and having a Spanish passport, because I have always felt that Spain and Peru are two sides of the same coin, not only in my small person but in essential realities like history, language, and culture."

He recalled with nostalgia the five years he lived in Barcelona in the early seventies: "For me, those were unforgettable years of comradeship, friendship, plots, and fertile intellectual work. Just as Paris had been, Barcelona was a Tower of Babel, a cosmopolitan, universal city where it was stimulating to live and work and where, for the first time since the days of the Civil War, Spanish and Latin American writers mixed and fraternized."

In what was perhaps the most important speech of his life, he didn't forget to mention his wife of 45 years, Patricia. "Without her my life would have dissolved a long time ago into a turbulent whirlwind, and Alvaro, Gonzalo, Morgana and the six grandchildren who extend and gladden our existence would not have been born. She is so generous that even when she thinks she is rebuking me, she pays me the highest compliment: "Mario, the only thing you're good for is writing," he joked as he poited her out, bringing laughter from the guests at the ceremony.

Among those attending was the author's literary agent for over 40 years, Carmen Balcells and the Peruvian artist Fernando de Szyszlo. Also present were his family, including his teenage grandchildren, as well as Spain's Culture Minister, Angeles Gonzalez Sinde, and Peru's Culture Minister, Juan Osio, the director of the Instituto Cervantes, Carmen Caffarel and the editors of most of his foreign publishers including, Pilar Reyes, head of Alfaguara.

Vargas Llosa finished his speech with a recommendation: "ours will always be, fortunately, an unfinished story. That is why we have to continue dreaming, reading, and writing, the most effective way we have found to alleviate our mortal condition, to defeat the corrosion of time, and to transform the impossible into possibility," he said as the guests rose for a standing ovation.

Source: EL PAÍS.