What if a brilliant, intellectually honest, and financially successful writer of international esteem ran for president of a corrupt developing nation? What if he refused to kowtow to political advisers, avoiding negative personal attacks and not recanting his agnosticism, though he was running for president of Catholic Peru?
The Nobel Prize-winning Mario Vargas Llosa is fascinating in his own right, and my favorite novelist. This memoir runs as two alternating, parallel stories: his childhood and early career, plus his improbable foray into Peruvian politics. Written in a highly readable, introspective and often amusing style, Vargas Llosa is easier to understand upon reading this book. The fantastic "Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter" bears surprisingly close resemblance to his own wooing of, and marriage to, his aunt (not by blood, but his uncle's ex-wife). His acclaimed "Time of the Hero" was based on his own military academy experience. He honestly discloses how his early adventures with brothels set the basis for "The Green House".
The son of an overbearing, often cruel, and typically absent father, Vargas Llosa grew up a sensitive child, most happy when living with a beloved aunt and uncle. Though he was poor, his forebears had been educated and quite successful in Peru. This memoir is generous in praise of those who helped him along the way, and even shares an amusing tale of the first time he shared a short story at a dinner of literary friends, who despised the work. Aspiring writers everywhere can take heart.
Peruvian politics was complicated; suffice it to say the country had decades of civil war, military dictators as well as 'democrats', like Alan Garcia, who were corrupt scoundrels. In the 1980s, the Maoist terroristic rebellion of Sendero Luminoso ("Shining Path"), brought the nation to near economic collapse. These were not cuddly European social democrats but rather, cold-blooded killers who stoned victims of summary 'People's Courts'. Peru's major parties were Communist, Socialist, Catholic center, and the APRA, a one-time socialistic party that had moved in a somewhat rightward direction, albeit one that enriched its politicians. Vargas Llosa started with Communist sympathies but would evolve into a leading Latin 'libertarian'. His political beliefs are strongly anti-dictator, as seen in a number of his novels, whether set in Peru or, for example, his excellent "Feast of the Goat" about the brutal Trujillo dictatorship in the Dominican Republic.
Like one of his novels, Mario Vargas Llosa's run turned into farce. He had zero interest in political power, but his well-publicized positions and signing of open letters brought him into the fray. Peruvian civil society was fragile; Vargas Llosa was very concerned with the plight of the poor in the country's continuing economic crisis. In fact, his wife was a leader of charity for Peru's lower class. Against his better judgment, Mario allowed himself to be drafted, though he campaigned full-time.
He started with a deep well of positive public support, leading in the polls for three years in advance of the election. An agnostic, his new party, Libertad, ended up closely allied with Catholic parties. Vargas Llosa has long argued nationalism is a vice; this became a campaign problem. He is a citizen of the world and has lived in Spain, France and England for much of his adult life. His campaign was hindered when opposition parties took some of his raunchier work and turned out-of-context content into placards. State-controlled TV read his erotic novel "In Praise of the Stepmother" during daytime hours to discredit him. Millions of written words haunted his campaign.
Vargas Llosa hates war. He has long been loudly anti-racist, writing of the equality of all peoples, and many of his books focus on indigenous peoples of Peru, especially "The Storyteller". Unfortunately, race is complicated in Peru, with a volatile mix of Spanish, indigenous tribes, African, Asian, and blended people. Because the APRA's straw man candidate, Alberto Fujimori, was of Japanese ancestry, race became an issue. Vargas Llosa spoke forcefully against those of his own supporters who questioned if Fujimori was truly Peruvian. The agnostic Vargas Llosa was caught in a strange trap of Catholic vs. emergent Evangelical rivalries. Fujimori ran on simple slogans; Vargas Llosa presented an extremely detailed roadmap for reform. The roadmap was easy to critique.
Vargas Llosa won the first round, but with less than 50% of the vote. This required a runoff between Vargas Llosa and second-place Fujimori. When the parties of the Left threw their support behind the nebulous Fujimori, Vargas Llosa lost. Ironically, Fujimori governed as a right-wing authoritarian, personally enriching himself, shutting down Congress and the Supreme Court, while installing himself as dictator. Fujimori would eventually be exiled, and many years later, extradited from Chile. Fujimori was convicted of corruption and today rots in a Peruvian jail.
One can only wonder what would have been had Vargas Llosa won. Since he continued to write excellent novels after politics, the reading world, at least, was none the worse.