Mario Vargas Llosa: The Realist as Neo-Liberal

Welcome back to our mini-series on realism and the Latin American novel. In this episode, we provide a thorough engagement with the late Peruvian master, Mario Vargas Llosa, an author of major works from all the way back in the 1950s to the current decade. Pat speaks with Neil Larsen, Professor Emeritus of Comparative Literature, about his seminal essay, “Mario Vargas Llosa: The Realist as Neo-Liberal.” What makes Vargas Llosa revolutionary as a storyteller, but a reactionary ideologue? We cast a glance over Perú’s distinct 20th century history and how Vargas Llosa’s anti-leftism oddly heralded the Milei/Bolsonaro New Right, possibly soon to include Keiko Fujimori, the daughter of former Peruvian dictator Alberto Fujimori. Thus, we discuss in detail Vargas Llosa's great novel Historia de Mayta, about a failed 1958 highlands insurgency, written during the Sendero Luminoso uprising. We also consider two of Vargas Llosa's strongest 21st Century works, the interlinked La Fiesta del Chivo (2000) about the Dominican Republic and Tiempos Récios (2019) about Guatemala, which seem to confirm Neil’s thesis that despite his reactionary politics he couldn’t help but depict a CIA coup with anything but bone-chilling precision and sober pessimism.

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