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Nobel Committee on Vargas Llosa: “The rebel remains his protagonist”

By Andean Air Mail & PERUVIAN TIMES

(12/20/2010)Mario Vargas Llosa was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature during a ceremony in Stockholm on Friday.
In his award ceremony speech, the Chairman of the Nobel Committee for literature, Författaren Per Wästberg, said Vargas Llosa’s “rebellion against an authoritarian father sparked an opposition against circumstances that extended into a youthful escape to literature and imagination.” Adding: “The rebel remains his protagonist.”

Mario Vargas Llosa was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature during a ceremony in Stockholm on Friday.

In his award ceremony speech, the Chairman of the Nobel Committee for literature, Författaren Per Wästberg, said Vargas Llosa’s “rebellion against an authoritarian father sparked an opposition against circumstances that extended into a youthful escape to literature and imagination.” Adding: “The rebel remains his protagonist.”

His prolific work includes plays, essays, novels that range from historical to detective mysteries, comedy and political thrillers, and also newspaper columns and articles, including the fortnightly Piedra de Toque (Touchstone) in El Pais of Madrid. He is also a frequent speaker and visiting professor at universities in Europe and the United States.

“Mario Vargas Llosa’s writing has shaped our image of South America and has its own chapter in the history of contemporary literature. In his early years, he was a renewer of the novel; today, an epic poet of not only Latin American stature. His wide embrace enfolds all literary genres,” said Wästberg.

“Vargas Llosa has led us through unfamiliar milieux with an authority that lends the authenticity of a 19th-century explorer. He links the narrative tradition of Balzac and Tolstoy to the modernistic experiments of William Faulkner.”

“[He] has an eye for the foolishness of innocence and the lethargy of evil. He is unusual in his ability to depict men’s friendship as well as sadistic penalism and hierarchical vanity.”

Vargas Llosa becomes the first South American winner of the $1.5 million Nobel Prize in literature since Colombia’s Gabriel Garcia Marquez in 1982, and the first Spanish-language writer to win since Mexico’s Ocatvio Paz in 1990. He was awarded the prize by Sweden’s King Carl XVI Gustaf.