Mario Vargas Llosa

On its opinion pages the WSJ celebrates Nobel Prize winner in literature, Mario Vargas Llosa, in two articles this morning. The editorial begins, “Winners…are typically distinguished by their literary obscurity, suffocating prose and left wing politics. But every decade or so the prize-givers get it right: Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn in 1970, Czeslaw Milosz in 1980, Octavio Paz on 1990, V.S. Naipaul in 2001. Right on schedule, this year’s prize went to Peru’s Mario Vargas Llosa.”

In 2007, WSJ’s Emily Parker interviewed Mr. Llosa in Lima, Peru. She writes today, “Mr. Vargas Llosa’s Nobel Prize is a great victory - and not just for the talented and prolific author. His work is perhaps the greatest rebuttal to those who believe literature exists on the periphery of history and politics, or who claim that they have ‘no time’ for fiction.”

She goes on, “Mr. Vargas Llosa’s novels reflect his deep personal hatred of dictatorships and his staunch belief in the value of individual liberty… he describes how dictatorships impregnate ‘every act of life’…(and how) ‘the woman is almost always the first victim of a dictator…’ (Llosa) gained notoriety for his emphasis on a market economy, free trade and private property (rights). He was no less controversial for his support of the invasion of Iraq, which he saw as necessary to ending the ‘monstrous dictatorship’ of Saddam Hussein.”

Book chains such as Borders may face a moral dilemma as their stock of unsold liberal tomes continue to clog their groaning display shelves; especially now, in light of the Nobel Prize committee’s remarkable hat tip to Llosa’s international triumph.

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