The recovered childhood

Sergio R. Franco

pp. 125-136

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

Abstract

Because of its built-in heterogeneity and multiplicity of intentions and its proximity to the time of its writing, Mario Vargas Llosa's A Fish in the Water (1993) occupies a unique position in the growing corpus of Latin American autobiographical writing. In effect, only three years before its publication, Vargas Llosa had been a candidate for the Peruvian presidency. He was the candidate for Frente Democrático, or Democratic Front (FREDEMO), a coalition that included traditional parties, like Acción Popular and Partido Popular Cristiano, and the new Movimiento Libertad, led by the writer. Vargas Llosa was defeated by Alberto Fujimori, a then-unknown Peruvian engineer of Japanese descent, after two electoral rounds (April and June, 1990). This defeat not only ended an intense political campaign but also constituted a major surprise for those involved. The unexpected turn of events of the last two weeks of those presidential elections two decades ago was also a surprise to average citizens like myself. Without a doubt, those are the events that explain the immediate reception of A Fish in the Water as a chronicle of the political campaign. This is an impoverishing interpretation of a text that exceeds such a characterization. However, it is also true without this defeat the memoirs would not exist.¹ It is the magnitude of the endeavor that undeniably marks a key moment in the life of the protagonist.