In dreams pubescent Mario Vargas Llosa, Paris blunted like the Parnassus, this literary homeland where the greatest writers ever cited and today made a hole in the heart of the Sorbonne, the Spanish-Peruvian writer.
Under the gaze of portraits of a certain Moliere, Racine or Descartes, in room Louis Liard of Parisian university, Vargas Llosa appeared serious and solemn the tribute that will be taxed on the occasion of the appearance of their selected in the prestigious La Pleiade collection of works.
the writer -surrounded by loved ones as his son Alvaro, Antoine Gallimard editor or his partner Isabel Preysler- reminded those present of the enormous significance that Paris for his life and his work.
Before his speech, academic Florence Delay and actor Bruno Raffaeli, the Comedie Francaise, read excerpts from “the green house,” “aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter “and” the way to paradise “.
in this last novel Vargas Llosa himself rescued a part that read in tandem with the actress Joaquina Belaunde, before thrilling the guests with his sense speech thanks to France and its capital, also spoke in the language of Moliere.
While acknowledging that even a writer as he lacked the words to describe his feelings, was right to say that the day Gallimard she called him to announce that he would enter the constellation of the Pleiades was the happiest day of her life. “Thanks to my teacher at the Alliance Francaise in Lima discovered La Pleiade.
Without doubt, were classical writers, eternal. Malraux, Zola, Balzac … I could never imagine that one day I would part of this family of geniuses! “he said.
so even today still find it hard to believe that it is” next to Proust, Sartre, Tolstoy and Kafka, “so he confessed to being still “somewhat embarrassed”.
at least, he consoled himself, it is not the only Latin American part of that galaxy, which also hosts “the great Borges and the great Octavio Paz”.
His gratitude I extended to France and French culture, which allowed him to find what kind of writer I wanted to be and that is not enough innate genius to succeed in literature.
“in 1958 I discovered in Paris ‘Madame Bovary’. My life changed after reading Flaubert. then I knew I wanted to be a realist writer, that has nothing to do with vulgarity. with Flaubert realism was an extreme rigor, of great beauty and a search extreme perfection, “he recalled.
later, checking the correspondence of the great French novelist found that” although had not been born a genius, perseverance and stubbornness “could give light masterpieces.
At the Paris, the young Vargas also discovered universalism, far from the “world so small it was at that time Latin America” and that real literature should always have that universal vocation.
and finally, the writer found the maverick and rebel voice of his work, because, in his view, literature can not be neutral, but must be committed and take sides.
“the literature is always controversial, problematic. Can make mistakes or defend wrong causes, can be just or unjust, but can not be a simple reflection of the world as it is, “he argued.
A masterclass, with the exact word. So wanted Vargas Llosa, stand before the parnaso, thank France and literature all you have given in life.
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