Call Number:

C0641

Repository:

Princeton University Library: Manuscripts Division

Extent:

• 230 linear feet
• 362 boxes
• 60 items

Language:

Spanish; Castilian

Preferred Citation:

Identification of specific item; Date (if known); Mario Vargas Llosa Papers, Box and Folder Number; Special Collections, Princeton University Library.

Date:

1958-1995 (bulk) and 1944-2010 (inclusive)

Creator:

Movimiento Libertad (Peru) and Vargas Llosa, Mario (1936)

Form:

Correspondence, Manuscripts., Notebooks, Photographs, Original., Screenplays., and Speeches.

Abstract:

The Mario Vargas Llosa Papers consists of notebooks, manuscripts of novels, plays and screenplays, short stories, nonfiction, documents, correspondence, and printed and recorded material.

Mario Vargas Llosa was born in Arequipa, Peru, on March 28, 1936. He attended the University of San Marcos in Lima and the University of Madrid, where he obtained the doctorate in 1959. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2010.

Writer, journalist, critic and teacher, he has taught at the Queen Mary College and King's College of the University of London, Washington State University (Pullman), the University of Puerto Rico (Río Piedras), at Columbia, Harvard, Princeton and Georgetown Universities and at The City University of New York. He was a Fellow at the Woodrow Wilson Center, Washington, D.C. He has been the recipient of many literary prizes, among which are the Premio Biblioteca Breve, Seix Barral (1962), Premio Internacional de Literatura Rómulo Gallegos (1967), Premio Nacional de la Novela (1967), Premio del Instituto Italo Latinoamericano (Italy, 1982), and the Ritz Paris Hemingway Award (1985). Vargas Llosa was a journalist with La Industria , Piura, Peru, with Radio Panamericana and La Crónica , both of Lima and with Agence France-Presse and the French Radio-Television Network in Paris. He has hosted the Peruvian television program "The Tower of Babel," and he writes a newspaper column, "Piedra de Toque" [Touchstone] for El País (Madrid, Spain) which is syndicated throughout Latin America.

Mario Vargas Llosa became actively involved in Peruvian politics at the national level when he and others founded a civic organization called Movimiento Libertad [Liberty Movement] in 1987. The Movement was created, in part, to protest the attempt of President Alan García to nationalize the Peruvian banking system; and its members played a key role in the formation of Frente Democrático (FREDEMO) [Democratic Front], a coalition of political parties which became an official party in August, 1989. After being nominated as FREDEMO's first presidential candidate in 1989, Vargas Llosa resigned his candidacy in June of that year. He was then persuaded to return to the presidential race after receiving over 3,000 letters from the general public urging his return to the campaign. There were two rounds of presidential elections in Peru in 1990: the first held on April 8, and the second held on June 10. Vargas Llosa won the first round of elections with 27.6% of the vote (Cambio 90 candidate Alberto Fujimori received 24.6% and the APRA candidate Luis Alva Castro received 19.1% of the vote). In the second round, Mario Vargas Llosa received 33.9% of the vote; he lost the election to Alberto Fujimori, who received 56.5% of the vote. *

In 1994, Vargas Llosa became the first Latin American voted member of the Real Academia Española de la Lengua (Spain), and he won the Premio Miguel de Cervantes (Spain). He has taught at Queen Mary College and King's College of the University of London, Cambridge University, and at various universities in the U.S., including Princeton (1992-1993, 2010), Harvard (1992-1993), Georgetown, and Syracuse.

* Leslie Bethell. ed. The Cambridge History of Latin America. Volume VIII. Latin America Since 1930: Spanish South America (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1991), p. 507.

Mario Vargas Llosa was born in Arequipa, Peru, on March 28, 1936. He attended the University of San Marcos in Lima and the University of Madrid, where he obtained the doctorate in 1959. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2010.

Writer, journalist, critic and teacher, he has taught at the Queen Mary College and King's College of the University of London, Washington State University (Pullman), the University of Puerto Rico (Río Piedras), at Columbia, Harvard, Princeton and Georgetown Universities and at The City University of New York. He was a Fellow at the Woodrow Wilson Center, Washington, D.C. He has been the recipient of many literary prizes, among which are the Premio Biblioteca Breve, Seix Barral (1962), Premio Internacional de Literatura Rómulo Gallegos (1967), Premio Nacional de la Novela (1967), Premio del Instituto Italo Latinoamericano (Italy, 1982), and the Ritz Paris Hemingway Award (1985). Vargas Llosa was a journalist with La Industria , Piura, Peru, with Radio Panamericana and La Crónica , both of Lima and with Agence France-Presse and the French Radio-Television Network in Paris. He has hosted the Peruvian television program "The Tower of Babel," and he writes a newspaper column, "Piedra de Toque" [Touchstone] for El País (Madrid, Spain) which is syndicated throughout Latin America.

Mario Vargas Llosa became actively involved in Peruvian politics at the national level when he and others founded a civic organization called Movimiento Libertad [Liberty Movement] in 1987. The Movement was created, in part, to protest the attempt of President Alan García to nationalize the Peruvian banking system; and its members played a key role in the formation of Frente Democrático (FREDEMO) [Democratic Front], a coalition of political parties which became an official party in August, 1989. After being nominated as FREDEMO's first presidential candidate in 1989, Vargas Llosa resigned his candidacy in June of that year. He was then persuaded to return to the presidential race after receiving over 3,000 letters from the general public urging his return to the campaign. There were two rounds of presidential elections in Peru in 1990: the first held on April 8, and the second held on June 10. Vargas Llosa won the first round of elections with 27.6% of the vote (Cambio 90 candidate Alberto Fujimori received 24.6% and the APRA candidate Luis Alva Castro received 19.1% of the vote). In the second round, Mario Vargas Llosa received 33.9% of the vote; he lost the election to Alberto Fujimori, who received 56.5% of the vote. *

In 1994, Vargas Llosa became the first Latin American voted member of the Real Academia Española de la Lengua (Spain), and he won the Premio Miguel de Cervantes (Spain). He has taught at Queen Mary College and King's College of the University of London, Cambridge University, and at various universities in the U.S., including Princeton (1992-1993, 2010), Harvard (1992-1993), Georgetown, and Syracuse.

* Leslie Bethell. ed. The Cambridge History of Latin America. Volume VIII. Latin America Since 1930: Spanish South America (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1991), p. 507.

Consists of personal and working papers of Mario Vargas Llosa. Included are manuscript first drafts (see Notebooks), typescript drafts, and some galley and page proofs with holograph corrections of the novels La tía Julia y el escribidor , La guerra del fin del mundo, La ciudad y los perros, La casa verde, Pantaleón y las visitadoras, Conversación en la catedral, Historia de Mayta, El hablador, ¿Quién mató a Palomino Molero?, and Elogio de la madrastra ; drafts of the short stories collected under the title Los jefes ; and notes and second and later drafts with holograph corrections of the plays La chunga, La señorita de Tacna, and Kathie y el hipopótamo . Also included are several drafts of the film scripts "La guerra de Canudos" (1967-1972), and "Pantaleón y las visitadoras", notes and drafts of scripts for the television program "La Torre de Babel", hosted by the writer, notes and manuscripts of essays, articles, speeches, and lectures. There is also material about the author, such as interviews (two video-recorded), essays, and newspaper clippings.

The extensive correspondence covers the period 1957 to 1994, and includes letters from family members, publishers, and a wide range of renowned writers such as Jorge Amado, José María Arguedas, Carlos Barral, Mario Benedetti, José Bianco, Julio Cortázar, José Donoso, Rosario Ferré, Carlos Fuentes, Gabriel García Márquez, Ana María Matute, Pablo Neruda, José Emilio Pacheco, Nelida Piñon, Carlos Quijano, Augusto Roa Bastos, Sebastián Salazar Bondy, Manuel Scorza, and others.

The political archive consists primarily of correspondence between Vargas Llosa and his wife, Patricia, and other politicians, nonprofit organizations in Peru and other Latin American countries, diplomats, and the general public while he served as a leader of Movimiento Libertad [Liberty Movement], a civic organization which was founded in Peru in 1987, and as the presidential candidate of Frente Democrático (FREDEMO) [Democratic Front] in 1989 and 1990. Vargas Llosa lost to Alberto Fujimori, candidate of the Cambio 90 party in the second round of elections held on June 10, 1990. The archive includes correspondence between Vargas Llosa and leaders of Movimiento Libertad and FREDEMO. Political correspondents include Luis Bedoya Reyes, Fernando Belaúnde Terry, Luis Bustamante Belaúnde, Miguel Cruchaga, Jorge Salmón Jordán, Miguel Vega Alvear, Pedro Pablo Kuczyinski, Enrique Ghersi Silva, and Fernando de Szyszlo. The General Correspondence includes many letters with suggestions on how to improve the economic conditions of Peru, on why they are voting for him as president, and with lists of names with signatures and voter identification numbers. Included in this correspondence are political slogans, poems, drawings, horoscopes, newspaper clippings, and some photographs and maps.

The collection also includes a series of additional papers that are being gradually processed, which contain correspondence, articles, drafts, proofs, notebooks, audio cassettes containing interviews, and other materials.