El País de Las Mil Caras: Escritos Sobre El Perú / A Country of a Thousand Faces: Writings about Peru

«El Per es para m una especie de enfermedad incurable y mi relaci n con l es intensa, spera, llena de la violencia que caracteriza a la pasi n .

Las m s de cinco d cadas durante las que se ha desarrollado la labor period stica de Mario Vargas Llosa est n jalonadas de textos imprescindibles sobre la cultura, la pol tica, la historia y la realidad social de Per cuya lectura en este volumen revela al lector la profunda vinculaci n del Premio Nobel de Literatura con su pa s natal.

« ste es el Per de Mario Vargas Llosa, el que recorri , vivi y vio evolucionar social, cultural y pol ticamente. El pa s en el que se inspir para escribir sus novelas, el que incub sus demonios literarios y el que despert su inconformismo y su curiosidad intelectual. ste es el Per en el que proyect sus ilusiones y con el que se enfrasc en m s de una escaramuza; la sociedad que quiso transformar desde la acci n pol tica y que finalmente ayud a moldear desde el debate p blico. Si como novelista Vargas Llosa logr fijar una imagen del Per que hoy es mundialmente reconocida --una imagen ficticia, m tica, que sin embargo resume de manera fiel los conflictos, dilemas, frustraciones y anhelos de la vida peruana--, como intelectual logr contagiar a la sociedad con sus preocupaciones, ideas, gustos y valores. No es exagerado decir que la conversaci n publica en el Per actual es la que es, en gran medida, porque a lo largo del ltimo medio siglo Vargas Llosa ha publicado determinados art culos y determinados ensayos, y porque con ellos logr abrir debates econ micos, morales, ideol gicos y est ticos de enorme impacto en los distintos mbitos de la vida peruana .

Del pr logo de Carlos Gran s

ENGLISH DESCRIPTION

"Peru is to me a sort of incurable disease, and my relationship with it is intense, rough, full of the characteristic violence in passion."

The more than five decades during which Mario Vargas Llosa's journalistic work has been developing are dotted by essential works on culture, politics, history, and Peru's social reality, and in this volume, he reveals to the reader the deep bond the Nobel Prize winner has with his native country.

"This is Mario Vargas Llosa's Peru, the one he traveled, lived, and watched evolve socially, culturally, and politically. The country that inspired him to write his novels, the one that incubated his literary demons, and the one that sparked his nonconformity and his intellectual curiosity. This is the Peru where Vargas Llosa cast his illusions, and the one he skirmished with more than once; the society he wanted to transform through political action and which he finally got to mold through public debate. If, as a novelist, Vargas Llosa managed to set an image of Peru today that is known worldwide--a fictitious, mythical image, that nevertheless faithfully summarizes the conflicts, dilemmas, frustrations, and yearnings of Peruvian life--as an intellectual he managed to spread his concerns, ideas, tastes, and values through society. It is no exaggeration to say that public dialogue in current Peru largely is what it is because Vargas Llosa has been publishing certain articles and certain essays for the last half a century, and because through them he managed to open financial, moral, ideological, and artistic debates of great impact in the different spheres of Peruvian life."

From the prologue by Carlos Gran s.