L'amerique latine, mon continent
In: Politique internationale: pi, Issue 127, p. 341-352
ISSN: 0221-2781
A prolific novelist and author of several masterpieces of contemporary South American literature (Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter, Conversation in the Cathedral, The Feast of the Goat, etc.), Mario Vargas Llosa is a cultivated, charismatic figure and a formidable public speaker. A poet and essayist -- he has written a magnificent study of Flaubert and Madame Bovary -- Vargas Llosa also has a passionate interest in history and international politics: he himself was a presidential candidate in Peru's 1990 elections, and is a regular commentator for the Spanish daily El Pais. In this interview with Olivier Guez, Mario Vargas Llosa dissects Chavez's extravagances in Venezuela, Lula's rise to power in Brazil, the right's recent victory in Chile, and Peru under Alan Garcia. His views are those of a politically committed man who has never stopped believing in the destiny of "his continent", South America. His positioning is that of an unapologetic free-marketer, at a time when all respectable intellectuals are supposed to be on the left. Adapted from the source document.
