Vargas Llosa's wife says controversy over Argentina visit is 'absurd'

As the controversy over the attendance of Literature Nobel Prize winner Mario Vargas Llosa to the Book Fair opening continues, his wife Patricia assured that her husband is not coming to Argentina “to make trouble.” Earlier, Cabinet Chief Aníbal Fernández called the Peruvian author “an enemy of Argentina.”

“This whole thing is absurd. In no way is Mario trying to go to Argentina in order to start a controversy or make trouble,” Patricia Llosa said.

At the same time, she said that her husband doesn’t have a Facebook account, for which the alleged statements in which he was seen saying that the wanted to come to Argentina to “reply to the Kirchnerites.”

Earlier, Cabinet Chief Aníbal Fernández, criticized the Nobel Prize winner. “He is an enemy of Argentina and all populist governments,” the minister said during a radio interview.  

Furthermore, Fernández commented that the Peruvian writer “hasn’t missed an opportunity to gratuitously insult our government on several occasions”, and added, “I don’t question the literary level of Vargas Llosa, what would be naive is not to observe his condition of a true sample of the most reactionary right (wing) that has ever been seen.”

After such harsh words, the official also recognized the request of President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner made to National Library Director Horacio González to immediately withdraw his petition asking for the Nobel Prize winner not to be invited to inaugurate the fair in order to guarantee there is “freedom of expression” within the country, thus trying to ease up on the current political polarization that society is being dragged to as part of a we-they dichotomy.

“I agree with the President’s request but I can’t stop from saying what I personally think about Vargas Llosa”, Fernández concluded.

Political ideals are always present in Vargas Llosa’s speeches and took him to run for president of Peru in 1990.

During his recent appearance after receiving the Literature Nobel Prize, the author had made clear where he stands in terms of ideologies and his stance on the civilization or barbarism cultural dichotomy: "I defended the moral, democratic and civic ideals of liberalism, and stand against regimes like the Cuban one. I defend civilization."

Vargas Llosa belongs to a group of Latin American writers who initially supported leftist political movements but eventually moved rightward in their views. Likewise, writers in Latin America often play prominent roles as so-called public intellectuals with which their thoughts have always played a prominent role in the conformation of the public opinion within the sphere of public and personal influence.   

The Nobel laureate also became identified with abandoning Latin America for Spain, which is what the author did, taking Spanish citizenship after losing the 1990 presidential election. This move was also seen as a betrayal in some intellectual circles. His open and expressive affinity for Spain, which he's reiterated in many interviews, doesn't win him points among those who regard him as antagonistic or indifferent to indigenous-rights movements in Latin America.

Furthermore, the writer was quoted as saying in 2003, while commenting on indigenous movements in Latin America in general that "Development and civilization are incompatible with certain social phenomenons, the principle being collectivism. [...] The indigenism ... that appears to have been forgotten is now behind phenomenons such as the señor Evo Morales in Bolivia."

The and once Morales became president of Bolivia, the Peruvian writer told Spanish newspaper El País that Morales was lying when he presents himself in Europe as an indigenous president, and dismissed the former coca workers' unionist as a "typical Latin American criollo (someone born in the Americas with Spaniard backgrounds), a Spanish-speaking mestizo, who is finishing off Bolivia."