In Defense of Mario Vargas Llosa

For reasons that elude me, anyone defending freedom of expression, free elections and political pluralism in Latin America is known as a right-winger among the area’s intellectuals.
Mario Vargas Llosa


In public forums about Latin American culture and politics, Mario Vargas Llosa, one the world’s most versatile writers today, is often described as a right-winger.

I confess that for many years I subscribed to this categorization. Vargas Llosa’s comments about the Sandinista government during the turbulent 1980’s aligned him, in my mind at least, with President Reagan’s policies toward Nicaragua, which I found highly objectionable.

In recent years, however, I’ve learned to read Vargas Llosa’s essays dispassionately, without prejudging his personal or political motives. I can only dream of writing so well and so prolifically. What’s more, the depth of his knowledge, on a seemingly infinite range of topics, makes me envious.

Last Christmas, as a gift, my friend Benjamin Murphy gave me a copy of the April 28, 1985 edition of The New York Times Magazine. A true collector’s item, he found it in a local bookstore. The magazine’s cover features a young girl strolling along a street in revolutionary Nicaragua. On the walls behind her, graffiti and posters extol the virtues of the Sandinista government. Also on the cover, in large, bold letters, is the title of the Vargas Llosa article that is the edition’s centerpiece: “In Nicaragua.”

Reading Vargas Llosa essay more than twenty years after its original publication, I am amazed at how prescient and balanced his observations were. Back in the 80s I had read excerpts of “In Nicaragua” and, frankly, I was outraged that the Peruvian had not produced an outright condemnation of President Reagan’s Contras. That alone, in my view at the time, made Vargas Llosa a rabid right-winger.

Today, however, I can state in all honesty that Vargas Llosa’s report on Nicaragua is fair and unbiased. In the article, the author expresses his surprise at the Sandinistas’ political openness. He expected a repressive regime, akin to what he claims he encountered in Castro’s Cuba. Instead, the political pluralism he witnessed in Nicaragua pleased him, and he was impressed that Sandinista officials allowed him to roam the country at will and to speak freely with their opponents. The nation’s lax security also surprised the writer, as did the apparent normalcy of life in the midst of a growing counter-revolution.

Vargas Llosa does note that external political and economic pressures had forced Nicaragua’s leftist rulers into becoming pragmatic. In order to survive, the Sandinista leaders had to make considerable concessions, and in the process set aside their stated goal of creating a socialist utopia. But the Peruvian also found the opposition utterly disorganized, unable to agree on how to best confront the Sandinistas. And he judged , quite accurately, that the Nicaraguan Catholic Church constituted the Sandinista’s most formidable and effective opponent. (The political struggle between the Catholic Church and the Sandinistas is, incidentally, an important theme in my novel Bernardo and the Virgin).

According to the Vargas Llosa, the most significant fault with the Sandinistas was that although they were willing to bend, they were determined never to surrender power.

My recent reading of “In Nicaragua” has assured me that readers can always count on Vargas Llosa to write the truth as he sees it. Moreover, in his essays no one is exempt from criticism. While it’s true that he has barraged Fidel Castro through the years—and now Hugo Chávez and Evo Morales can be added to his list of favorite targets—readers must also take into account that he just as readily condemns the Bush administration, and that he has taken on the Vatican on several occasions.

Like baseball umpires, Mario Vargas Llosa “calls them as he sees them”—all the time unconcerned about being “politically correct.” Thus, if being honest makes him a right-winger, then that’s a badge to be worn with pride, and deservedly so.