El país de las mil caras / The Country of a Thousand Faces
Journalistic Work , 2024
Alfaguara
Pages: 832
Mario Vargas Llosa's perspective, Nobel Prize in Literature, on Peruvian history, politics, culture, and society.
Mario Vargas Llosa's journalistic work is marked by essential texts on the culture, politics, history, and social reality of Peru. Reading this volume reveals the deep connection the Nobel Prize-winning author has with his country.
"This is the Peru that he travelled through, lived in, and saw evolve socially, culturally, and politically. The country that inspired his novels, incubated his literary demons, and sparked his intellectual curiosity and nonconformity. This is the Peru where he projected his hopes and engaged in more than one skirmish; the society he sought to transform through political action and ultimately helped shape through public debate. If as a novelist he managed to fix an image of Peru that is now globally recognized—a fictitious, mythical image that faithfully summarizes the conflicts, dilemmas, frustrations, and aspirations of Peruvian life—then as an intellectual, he managed to influence society with his concerns, ideas, tastes, and values. It is no exaggeration to say that today's public conversation in Peru is what it is largely because over the past half-century, Vargas Llosa published certain articles and essays, and through them, he opened economic, moral, ideological, and aesthetic debates of enormous impact in various spheres of Peruvian life."
From the prologue by Carlos Granés