“Welcome. I was born in this house and spent my first year of life, together with my mother and my maternal family.” Standing next to my grandfather’s old office, Mario Vargas Llosa, one of the most important Latin writers and winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature, welcomed me. It’s okay that he wasn’t there in the flesh, but in hologram and technology, but his participation made the visit more interesting nonetheless.
This was in Arequipa, the second largest city in Peru and where Vargas Llosa was born. Upon completing his eighth decade of life, the Peruvian writer embraced his origins once and for all. He donated thousands of books to Arequipa libraries, encouraged the creation of a tour that bears his name and actively participated in the organization of the Museo Casa de Vargas Llosa, which operates in his family’s former residence. The writer recorded a series of videos, which are shown, like holograms, throughout the visit.
See too: What to do in Arequipa
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Arequipa, no Peru
After the welcome, it was time for the birth. A radio gave the news of the day and showed that we had returned to the past: it was March 28, 1936. While Arequipa was worried about the activity of the Ubinas volcano, Dora Llosa Ureta had a son. The holography once again does the work of a time machine and the midwife, an Englishwoman called Miss Pritchard, asks Dora to push. A baby’s crying invades the room. “It’s a boy,” says the midwife.
Vargas Llosa was the son of divorced parents. As the only result of that marriage, he never saw his parents together: the separation took place before he was born. His father, Ernesto Vargas Maldonado, had a relationship with a German woman, with whom he married and had other children.
Mario spent the first year of his life in that house on Bulevar Parra, with his mother’s family. He left early when his grandfather transferred jobs. The Llosa family’s following years were spent in Cochabamba, Bolivia, a time that is also reported in the Museum. For Mario, his childhood in Bolivia was full of good memories and completely happy.
Miraflores neighborhood, in Lima (Photo: Mira4espina78y. CC, 2013)
It’s easy to imagine that divorces were not accepted in Peruvian and Bolivian societies in the 1940s. Perhaps that was why Mario’s mother told the boy that his father had died. The truth only emerged when he was 10 years old, the age at which he met his father. He went to live with his paternal family the following year, this time in Lima.
Teenager Vargas Llosa had his first romantic experiences (and disappointments) in the Diego Ferré neighborhood, in Miraflores, and in the following years he studied at the Colégio Militar Leoncio Prado, where he began to write. Experiences that later ended up in one of the writer’s most famous books: “The City and the Dogs”, published in 1963.
Back at the museum, several characters talk to the writer, including Alberto, the poet, almost a self-portrait present in “The City and the Dogs”, who wants to understand the end of the book. The author’s dialogue with other characters continues – including the bad girl, a character from another famous work by Llosa.
In addition to the holograms, the walls of the house are full of objects and photographs that remind us of the important family that lived there. Many things were family collections, of course, but several objects were found in antique shops in Arequipa. Another room holds the awards and decorations that Vargas Llosa received throughout his life. And, outside the house, there is a theater named after the writer.
Vargas Llosa had a life full of adventures. He traveled the world, also lived in Madrid, Barcelona, Paris and London and had a controversial love life. His first marriage was to an aunt, Julia Urquidi, who was 10 years older. Okay, she wasn’t really Mario’s aunt, but she was part of the family: Julia’s older sister was married to his uncle.
See too: Mischief of the bad girl: a trip around the world with Vargas Llosa
The marriage, which went against the family, lasted 13 years and resulted in another romance: Aunt Julia and the scribbler. A year after the divorce, Vargas Llosa married again. And he continued everything in the family. This time the bride was Patricia Llosa, Mario’s cousin and Julia’s niece (Patricia’s mother was Olga, Julia’s older sister). When Mario and Julia were still a couple, Patrícia, then 15 years old, was welcomed into their home in Paris.
“Peru is Patrícia, the cousin with the snub nose and indomitable character”, said Mario, in his speech for the Nobel Prize for Literature, in 2010. Vargas Llosa’s second marriage lasted 50 years, until 2015, when the writer divorced and began a relationship with Isabel Preysler, with whom he had a two-decade friendship.
Add changes in political positioning, an almost winning presidential candidacy, several trips around the world, friendships with interesting people and a punch in the face from Gabriel García Marquez, an event that ended the friendship between the two. Yes, Vargas Llosa, your life is a book. The good thing is that you took it upon yourself to write several.
Service:
The Mario Vargas Llosa House Museum is located at Av Parra 101, Arequipa.
Open from Tuesday to Sunday, from 10am to 5pm.
Entrance costs 10 soles.
*360meridianos traveled to Peru at the invitation of Submarino Viagens and PromPerú
