Text by Bob Shell, Copyright 2025
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The Loss of The World’s Greatest Writer
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“Writing makes the extraordinary natural and the natural extraordinary, dissipates chaos, beautifies ugliness, eternalizes the moment, and turns death into a passing spectacle.” — Mario Vargas Llosa
There are many good writers whose books have made important contributions to literature and culture, but there aren’t that many really great writers. I’ve recently learned of the death of the man I consider the greatest writer of the 20th and early 21st centuries, Mario Vargas Llosa, who summarized his philosophy on writing above.
I first discovered Vargas Llosa’s writing about ten years ago when I stumbled on a pretty badly worn copy of ‘The Bad Girl’ in our library at Pocahontas State Correctional Center. Since most of the books there were of minimal interest, I didn’t expect much. But I had a lot of time on my hands, so I settled in to read it. To say I was bowled over by the book would be a gross understatement.
His style combined realism, erotica, crude local slang, and complex characters who were multidimensional. His tales often encompassed political corruption and moral compromise.
Vargas Llosa was born in 1936 in Peru, but but grew up in Bolivia. He came into his own as a novelist in the 1960s when there was a Latin American literary boom, with writers like Gabriel Garcia Marquez from Colombia and Julio Cortazar of Argentina drawing world acclaim. His first book was ‘The Time of the Hero,’ a scathing denunciation of life in the military school his parents forced him to attend. The book was denounced by the generals, which brought it and him much attention at the age of eighteen. He won the Nobel Prize in literature in 2010. He even ran for president of Peru in 1990.
He once said, “If you’re a writer in a country like Peru or Mexico, you’re a privileged person because you know how to read and write. It is a moral obligation of a writer in Latin America to be involved in civic activities.”
He lost the election, but that was probably good for his literary output. As president of Peru, he might have been too busy to write. He left Peru after that and spent most of his adult life in Europe where he became a columnist for El Pais, a major newspaper in Spain.
The second Vargas Llosa book I read was ‘The Notebooks of Don Rigoberto.’ This complex novel involves forbidden eroticism, cultural commentary on Peruvian society, and a history of Egon Schiele, who just happens to be my favorite artist. The book is illustrated with small Schiele drawings at the ends of the chapters. I previously wrote about Schiele and his influence on me here. Seeing him thrown into the mix in this book was a delightful surprise, and a validation of my love of Schiele’s art.
‘The Feast of the Goat,” Vargas Llosa’s novelization of the last days of the Trujillo dictatorship in the Dominican Republic is a gripping and masterful tale of political corruption and perversion based on reality. I hadn’t known much about this part of Caribbean history before reading this book last year.
Right now I’m engrossed in ‘Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter,’ Vargas Llosa’s second book, inspired by his marriage at nineteen to his twenty-nine year old sister-in-law. I hope I am able in time to read all of his other books, although all were written in Spanish, which I can’t read, and some seem to have never been translated into English.
He continued writing into his eighties, and late in his life he said, “Writing is a way of living with illusion and joy and a fire throwing out sparks in your head. This is an experience that continues to bewitch me as it did the first time.”
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About The Author: Bob Shell is a professional photographer, author, former editor in chief of Shutterbug Magazine and veteran contributor to this blog. He is currently serving a 35 year sentence for involuntary manslaughter for the death of Marion Franklin, one of his former models. He is serving the 17th year of his sentence at Pocahontas State Correctional Facility, Virginia.
On September 16, 2024 Shell’s release date got moved up six years due to new “mixed charges” law to February 2, 2030. It was 2036.
To read additional articles by Bob Shell link here: https://tonywardstudio.com/blog/perils-of-prison-life-and-the-first-amendment/