Thursday, October 7, 2010

Mario Vargas Llosa Wins Nobel Prize in Literature

At NYT (this link is updated from Memeorandum).

And from the writer's
Wikipedia entry:
Like many other Latin American intellectuals, Vargas Llosa was initially a supporter of the Cuban revolutionary government of Fidel Castro. He studied Marxism in depth as a university student and was later persuaded by communist ideals after the success of the Cuban Revolution. Gradually, Vargas Llosa came to believe that Cuban socialism was incompatible with what he considered to be general liberties and freedoms. The official rupture between the writer and the policies of the Cuban government occurred with the so-called Padilla Affair, when Fidel Castro imprisoned the poet Herberto Padilla. Vargas Llosa, along with other intellectuals of the time, wrote to Castro protesting against the Cuban political system and the imprisonment of the artist. Vargas Llosa has identified himself with liberalism rather than extreme left-wing political ideologies ever since. Since he relinquished his earlier leftism, he has opposed both left- and right-wing authoritarian regimes.
And I cited this from [Alvaro] Vargas Llosa previously, a great piece: "The Killing Machine: Che Guevara, from Communist Firebrand to Capitalist Brand."

Update: The piece on Che is from Vargas Llosa's son, notes TBogg in the comments. I never claimed I had read Mario.

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