Vargas Llosa hails "fiction" and freedom of speech in Nobel lecture

Dec 7, 2010, 17:17 GMT

Stockholm - Nobel Literature laureate Mario Vargas Llosa on Tuesday affirmed his love for writing and reading, hailed authors who have inspired him, and the value of freedom of speech and imagination.

'Without fictions we would less aware of the importance of freedom for life to be livable, the hell it turns into when it is trampled underfoot by a tyrant, an ideology, or a religion,' he said in his Nobel lecture.

In the lecture, entitled 'In praise of reading and fiction,' the Peruvian-born author recalled 'how the magic of translating the words in books into images' had enriched his life.

He also paid tribute to many authors, including Gustave Flaubert, William Faulkner, Cervantes, Dickens, Balzac, Tolstoy, Conrad, Thomas Mann, Albert Camus and George Orwell.

Vargas Llosa also explored political themes in his lecture, criticizing dictatorships and intolerance.

'Since every period has its horrors, ours is the age of fanatics, of suicide terrorists, an ancient species convinced that by killing they earn heaven, that the blood of innocents washes away collective affronts, corrects injustices, and imposes truth on false beliefs,' the one-time politician said.

Latin America's post-colonial history and failure to deal with the rights of the indigenous population was another topic he touched on.

He reflected on his youth when he was a Marxist, and his 'long and difficult' political transition to what he described as being a liberal. This was partly due to events like the 'conversion of the Cuban Revolution' as well as impressions from thinkers like Raymond Aron, Isaiah Berlin, and Karl Popper, he said.

While living in Paris, he had learned 'that literature is as much a calling as it is a discipline,' and also to appreciate other writers from Latin America including Borges, Octavio Paz, Cortázar, García Márquez, Fuentes, and Cabrera Infante.

The 74-year-old author also mentioned his debt to Spain, where his books were published and where he is a citizen.

The lecture was delivered at the Grand Hall of the Swedish Academy in Stockholm's Old Town. The academy selects the literature winner.

The literature prize is one of the Nobel awards endowed by Swedish industrialist Alfred Nobel, inventor of dynamite. The prizes are also awarded in medicine, physics, chemistry, peace and economics.

The peace prize is awarded in Oslo, Norway.

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