Conversation at Princeton

by Mario Vargas Llosa, Rubén Gallo, Anna Kushner (Translator)

Overview

A series of conversations held at Princeton University between the Nobel laureate Mario Vargas Llosa and Rubén Gallo.

Princeton University, 2015. For one semester, Mario Vargas Llosa taught a course on literature and politics with Rubén Gallo. Over several classes, the two writers spoke to students about the theory of the novel and the relationship between journalism, politics, and literature through five beloved books by the Nobel laureate: Conversation in The Cathedral, The Real Life of Alejandro Mayta, Who Killed Palomino Molero?, A Fish in the Water, and The Feast of the Goat.

Conversation at Princeton records these exhilarating discussions and captures the three complementary perspectives that converged in the classroom: that of Vargas Llosa, who reveals the creative process behind his novels; that of Rubén Gallo, who analyzes the different meanings the works took on after their publication; and that of the students, whose reflections and questions give voice to the responses of millions of Vargas Llosa’s readers.

During these talks, Vargas Llosa not only speaks with intelligence and lucidity about the craft of writing, but also offers an absorbing, inquisitive analysis of today’s political and cultural landscape. Conversation at Princeton is a singular opportunity to attend a unique master class on literature and society taught by one of our greatest writers and thinkers.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781250321787
Publisher:	Picador
Publication date:	01/14/2025
Pages:	272
Product dimensions:	5.38(w) x 8.25(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

Mario Vargas Llosa was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2010 “for his cartography of structures of power and his trenchant images of the individual’s resistance, revolt, and defeat.” He has also won the Miguel de Cervantes Prize, the Spanish-speaking world’s most distinguished literary honor, and in 2021 he was elected a member of the Académie Française. His many works include The Feast of the Goat, In Praise of the Stepmother, and Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter, all published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux.

Rubén Gallo is the author of several books, including Proust’s Latin Americans, Freud’s Mexico: Into the Wilds of Psychoanalysis, and the novel Muerte en La Habana. He is the Walter S. Carpenter, Jr., Professor in Language, Literature, and Civilization of Spain at Princeton University and a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Anna Kushner has translated the novels of Norberto Fuentes, Guillermo Rosales, and Gonçalo M. Tavares. She has also translated works by Marcial Gala and Leonardo Padura, both of whom are published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux.

Editorial Reviews

"A fascinating window, not only into Vargas Llosa’s biography and break with Marxism, but also into the way in which literary fiction, given its moral, emotional, and psychological insights, can bring more truth to history than any mere recital of the facts." —David Mehegan, Arts Fuse

"An indispensable volume for fans of Vargas Llosa, Latin American literature, and the art of great writing." —Kirkus Reviews

"The Nobel laureate reveals a sharp intellect that seems most comfortable in the liminal spaces between the contrasting environments of fiction and journalism, Europe and South America, politics and poetics." —Brendan Driscoll, Booklist

From the Publisher

10/31/2022

A 2015 seminar co-taught by Peruvian author Llosa and Princeton professor Gallo comes to the page in this fascinating volume. The seminar, on politics and literature, sees Gallo prompt in-depth personal reflections and considered opinions from the novelist. Llosa recalls his early days working as a journalist (“It helped me to discover the reality of my country”), outlines his literary influences (“Faulkner, but also Dos Passos”), and considers the challenges of translation (“The meaning of that word is very dependent on who says it, to whom it is being said, and the tone with which it is said”). Especially vivid is the chapter on his 2000 novel The Feast of the Goat, about in which Llosa outlines the novel’s inspiration, the research he did for it, and his writing process. Students occasionally interject with questions, and insightful anecdotes about the novelist’s process (“I wrote episodes here and there first, until I found the structure,” he notes of Conversation in The Cathedral) and political perspective (“No country, no matter how advanced it is, is completely immune to a dictatorship”) abound. Llosa’s readers will appreciate this peek behind the curtain. (Jan.)

Publishers Weekly

★ 10/01/2022

Two books from Nobel laureate Vargas Llosa is cause for celebration. Call attempts to do for liberal thought what Edmund Wilson did for socialism in 1940's To the Finland Station; in separate essays, he traces the evolution of liberal doctrine from 18th-century Adam Smith through six 20th-century writers—Ortega y Gasset, Hayek, Popper, Aron, Berlin, and Revel. They're not the only thinkers he could have chosen to examine, but they're the ones who most directly influenced him. When Vargas Llosa was 12, Peru's president, a relative of his family, was overthrown, and Peru slid from democracy into dictatorship. The author emerged convinced that the root enemy of free society was suppression of speech. He started college a Sartrean and was an early enthusiast of the Cuban revolution but became disillusioned as he witnessed injustices that took place there. He eventually found that he could no longer tolerate Sartre's kneejerk support of communism. The best essay in this book is on Isaiah Berlin, who argued that humans hold ideals that don't fit together; they have to work out ways to accommodate them through compromise and tolerance of difference. Conversations is an editing of classroom discussions on four of the author's novels and his memoir in a seminar conducted in tandem by Vargas Llosa and Princeton professor of Spanish literature and language Rubén Gallo. What constitutes a novel, and what role do novels play in our thinking and acting? The discussion bristles with sidebars: the constraints of journalism vs. fiction; why Sartre's novels no longer interest; censorship's effects on action; and how Vargas Llosa conceives his characters, researches stories, and structures his complicated back-and-forth narratives. The books on display run from Conversation in the Cathedral (1969) to The Feast of the Goat (2001), a memoir of his failed run for president of Peru. Throughout, Vargas Llosa comes across as gracious, self-aware, and modest. VERDICT Neither book will replace the author's landmark novels, but they enrich our appreciation for this great writer. Written in approachable style, they should appeal to all serious book lovers, not just academics.—David Keymer

Library Journal

★ 2022-10-26
Conversations on politics and writing with the 2010 Nobel laureate in literature.

After he joined the Princeton faculty in 2002, Gallo met Mario Vargas Llosa (b. 1936) when the latter spoke at the university about his essay on Les Misérables. When Gallo then became director of the Latin American studies program, he invited Vargas Llosa to spend several semesters teaching there. Gallo has since gone through 50 hours of recordings and notes on the seminars he and Vargas Llosa conducted and has collected that information in this magnificent book. In the first chapters, Vargas Llosa discusses “the effect of the great political events of the twentieth century on literature,” followed by his thoughts on the role of journalism in his maturity as a writer. The bulk of the book consists of long discussions of five Vargas Llosa works: the novels Conversation in the Cathedral, The Real Life of Alejandro Mayta, Who Killed Palomino Molero?, and The Feast of the Goat; and A Fish in the Water, a hybrid that chronicles Vargas Llosa’s 1990 presidential campaign in his native Peru and a memoir of his youth. The book concludes with a spirited discussion on “the role of the intellectual in the face of the ever more real threat of terrorism.” Many thoughtful questions from Gallo and his students elicit provocative answers on an appealing variety of topics, including the perniciousness of dictatorships, the scourge and popularity of yellow journalism (“there is public pressure for journalism to also be entertainment”), and Vargas Llosa’s approach to writing (he uses “hidden details” that “hide the story’s main event,” a technique he learned from reading Hemingway). The result is a treasure trove of literary advice and political analysis. Vargas Llosa also offers relevant warnings on the ways in which democratic societies can corrode into authoritarianism, as when he notes the ease with which “truths become lies, and lies become truths.”

An indispensable volume for fans of Vargas Llosa, Latin American literature, and the art of great writing.

Kirkus Reviews