Five days after the Peru­vian nov­el­ist Mario Var­gas Llosa won the Nobel Prize in Lit­er­a­ture, he walked into a Prince­ton class­room where 25 stu­dents awaited their weekly sem­i­nar on the mag­i­cal real­ism of the Argen­tine writer Jorge Luis Borges.

And then, said one astounded under­grad­u­ate, he pre­tended noth­ing had happened.

“Thank you very, very much,” he said, smil­ing broadly, accord­ing to stu­dents who were there and had pre­sented him with a card and a spread of baked goods. “We’ll eat this dur­ing the break. But for now, let’s start class.”

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