Latin Analysis: The Political Legacy of Mario Vargas Llosa
What will Mario Vargas Llosa be remembered for? The Peruvian writer, who passed away on April 13, has had an impressive career; winning the Nobel Prize for Literature and becoming one of the most celebrated Latin American writers in history, thanks to the global success of his work. However, less people may appreciate his political power and his ideological journey, while fewer may know that he was nearly president of Peru.
Vargas Llosa is best known for writing experimental, groundbreaking novels that, alongside his friend and rival Gabriel García Marquéz, helped found the Latin American Boom literary movement of the 1960s-70s. Vargas Llosa’s work was inherently political, and was undeniably informed and inspired by the political and social contexts surrounding him. For example, his first novel published in 1962, The Time of the Hero, criticized corruption and abuse within a military school in Peru, an institution not unlike the one that Vargas Llosa attended himself during his childhood. His 1969 book ‘Conversations in the Cathedral’ received international acclaim for exposing the crimes and cruelties perpetuated by the Manuel Odria dictatorship in Peru which lasted from 1948-56. Despite his later dalliances in the world of politics, no one can deny that Vargas Llosa spent his whole life within it. He pursued his political goals with a pen, rather than through the ballot box, with much of his work being “inseparable from the instability and violence in parts of Latin America” at a time of repressive rule, dictatorship and revolution.
However, Mario Vargas Llosa’s ideological journey was not a straightforward one. As a student, Vargas Llosa was exposed to a completely different sector of society than that which he came from; he worked alongside the poor, atheists, communists and ‘cholos’ from the mountains. As a result of this, he joined a communist cell called Cahuide. He was a staunch advocate of socialism, studied Marxism and believed in armed struggle, admiring the work of Fidel Castro and the Cuban Revolution. However, he eventually moved away from this leftist ideology and grew to associate such ideas with poverty and authoritarianism, turning to free-market conservatism and more right-leaning political figures such as Margaret Thatcher. This shift accompanied Vargas Llosa’s growing disillusionment with the Castro regime in Cuba, triggered by the detention of Cuban poet Heberto Padilla for criticizing the government. Increasingly, Vargas Llosa denounced the actions of the Cuban government, which by 1980, he no longer saw as “a solution for developing nations.” This move was costly for Vargas Llosa. Although many notable writers joined him in denouncing the Cuban government for their actions during the so-called ‘Padilla affair’, this lurch to the right isolated Vargas Llosa from many of his colleagues within Latin American literary circles, namely his previously close friend and literary giant, Gabriel García Marquéz. Fans of his work also waged criticism against him for turning away from his leftist roots.
Despite this, Vargas Llosa never lost his passion for writing about his native Peru. During his life he lived all over the world, spending extended periods of time in Europe, especially in Spain. The calls of home- and fears of losing touch with Peruvian life- were strong, with him returning home in 1974 after 16 years away, to a country riddled with dictatorship. He returned throughout his life, once writing how “Peru is a kid of incurable illness and my relationship to it is intense, harsh and full of the violence of passion”.
This was part of the reason why he decided to run as a presidential candidate in the 1990 presidential election. The internationally renowned author and literary figure was the instant frontrunner, thanks to his high profile and big-budget, slick campaign. In comparison, the five minor candidates running against Vargas Llosa claimed around 1 per cent of voter preferences each in opinion polls less than six weeks before the first-round vote in April 1990. One of these minor candidates was Alberto Fujimori, at that point a relatively unknown figure in Peruvian society. However, come election day, it was Fujimori who came out on top, matching Vargas Llosa’s vote in the first round, and winning a landslide when voters returned to the polls on June 10, 1990.
Many were shocked at the result, given that this was Fujimori’s first attempt at electoral politics, while Vargas Llosa had enjoyed an illustrious literary career and was a celebrated figure in Peru by the 1990s. However, it appears that Vargas Llosa’s failure was less to do with the candidate himself and motivated more by public reaction to his alliance with established parties on the right. By aligning himself with this group, Fujimori was able to accuse Vargas Llosa of being a “tool of wealthy conservatives who would neglect the needs of Peru’s poor.” This was a powerful statement in a country which was riddled with deep running racial and class divides, which manifested itself in an acute income inequality problem. At that time, 10 per cent of Peru’s population held 55 per cent of the country’s total wealth, and it was hard for Vargas Llosa to escape from the label put on him as the “great white hope”.
Nowhere is this perception of Vargas Llosa as a representative of the rich, white elite clearer than in the demographic makeup of those who supported him in comparison to Fujimori. Around 80 per cent of the richest voters supported Vargas Llosa, while a similar proportion of the poorest groups voted for Fujimori. Vargas Llosa reigned supreme in the richest neighborhoods, but it was Fujimori who earned the support of young people and more rural populations. Aside from perceptions of Vargas Llosa as being the champion of the rich, white Peruvian, his economic policies did this novelist no favors with less privileged groups. As part of his free-market views, he advocated for ‘shock treatment’ for the economy, as well as widespread governmental spending cuts and an open economy. As the polls showed, this was “simply rejected” by the electorate, lifting relatively unknown Fujimori to power and paving the way for what would become a fairly authoritarian and oppressive regime.
Despite being unsuccessful in electoral politics, Vargas Llosa did not disappear from political life altogether. He went on to endorse and advocate for right-wing candidates in elections across the continent, even putting his support behind his ex-competitor’s daughter, Keiko Fujimori, when she ran against ex-president Pedro Castillo in 2021. The rise of such a figure as Castillo- a schoolteacher backed by a Marxist party- was not an attractive option for Vargas Llosa, with him preferring to endorse a candidate who had accusations of corruption waged against her. Additionally, he preferred Jair Bolsonaro to Lula da Silva in Brazil and was disappointed with the successes of leftist candidates Gustavo Petro in Colombia and Gabriel Boric in Chile. He was also a supporter of Javier Milei, Argentina’s current libertarian president.
Thus, in spite of his relative failure in presidential politics, Vargas Llosa’s legacy is an inherently political one. He was the embodiment of how literature is a tool for democracy and making sense of political realities. He built a ‘bridge’ between politics and literature in both his written work and his career as a whole, and reminded so many about the power of words, how politics is everywhere, as long as we know how to look for it.
