Vargas Llosa and the history of ideas

Corral

pp. 189-211

in: Juan E. De Castro, Nicholas Birns (eds), Vargas Llosa and Latin American politics, Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, 2010

Abstract

The battle of ideas has not lost its central importance in the twenty-first century. It is and will always be the subtext of the world of letters. In particular since the Dreyfus Affair, novelists have rarely been absent from these intellectual skirmishes. Few Latin American writers have been as committed to them—in their essays, novels, reviews, journalistic texts and other writings—as Mario Vargas Llosa. Nevertheless, these categories are paltry when it comes to defining an intellectual's course. This ubiquitous author has also become, in the last and present centuries, the conductor of an international nongovernmental campaign in defense of freedom in literature and the ideas that nurture freedom in society. As is the case with all good conductors, he exerts his authority if needed; but then he becomes the antagonist of all enemies of freedom.