Peruvian-Spanish Mario Vargas Llosa, recipient of the 2010 Nobel Prize in Literature and the 1994 Miguel de Cervantes Prize, will return to the Philippines this week at the invitation of Instituto Cervantes de Manila, the cultural arm of the Embassy of Spain.
Vargas Llosa will receive an honorary professorship from the University of Santo Tomas and an honorary doctorate from De La Salle University.
The professorship will be bestowed on Nov. 7 by UST Rector Magnificus Fr. Herminio Dagohoy, OP, and vice-rector Fr. Richard Ang, OP.
Upon his arrival, he will be taken on a short tour of the UST Library, which houses the largest collection of rare books in the country. After receiving the honorary professorship, he will deliver a lecture in Spanish (simultaneous interpreting will be provided).
On Nov. 8, Vargas Llosa will be conferred the Doctorate of Literature, honoris causa, by DLSU.
Vargas Llosa (Arequipa, Peru, 1936), was awarded the Nobel “for his cartography of structures of power and his trenchant images of the individual’s resistance, revolt and defeat.”
He has been hailed as “a divinely gifted storyteller” whose fiction has served to enhance the development of narrative art.
It won’t be the first time that Vargas Llosa will be in the Philippines. In 1978, he visited Manila and met with Philippine PEN writers led by (now) National Artist for Literaure F. Sionil Jose. He was at that time president of the International PEN (Poets & Playwrights, Essayists, Novelists).
His critically acclaimed fiction includes “La Ciudad y los Perros” (1963, “The Time of the Hero”); “La Tía Julia y el Escribidor” (1977, “Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter”); “La Fiesta del Chivo (2000, “The Feast of the Goat”); “Travesuras de la Niña Mala (2006, The Bad Girl)”; “El Sueño del Celta (2011, “The Dream of the Celt); “El Héroe Discrete (2013, “The Discreet Hero”); “Cinco Esquinas (2016, “Five Corners”).