The celebrated Peruvian author Mario Vargas Llosa, winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature (2010), recently visited the Department of Rare Books and Special Collections with his son Álvaro Vargas Llosa, a writer and commentator on Latin American and international affairs. They visited to review a few of about 300 boxes and cartons of the Mario Vargas Llosa Papers (C0641), which are preserved in the Manuscripts Division (see photos below). Vargas Llosa is currently a Lecturer in Creative Writing in the Lewis Center for the Arts and the Program in Latin American Studies.  He is co-teaching a course with Ephrain Kristal, Visiting Professor of Comparative Literature and the Program in Latin American Studies. The course is “The Literary Works of Mario Vargas Llosa in Their Artistic, Intellectual and Political Contexts” (LAS 329). In connection with course reading and writing assignments, students in the class are making independent visits to the Department of Rare Books and Special Collection to consult portions of the Vargas Llosa Papers.

Mario Vargas Llosa’s papers include the author’s notebooks, drafts, corrected proofs, and manuscripts of scripts, essays, articles, speeches, and lectures. His extensive correspondence covers the period 1957 to 1994, and includes letters from family members, publishers, and a wide range of renowned writers such as Jorge Amado, José María Arguedas, Carlos Barral, Mario Benedetti, José Bianco, Julio Cortázar, José Donoso, Rosario Ferré, Carlos Fuentes, Gabriel García Márquez, Ana María Matute, Pablo Neruda, José Emilio Pacheco, Nelida Piñon, Carlos Quijano, Augusto Roa Bastos, Sebastián Salazar Bondy, Manuel Scorza, and others. Also in his papers is the political archive pertaining to his leadership of the the Movimiento Libertad, a civic organization which was founded in Peru in 1987, and as the presidential candidate of Frente Democrático (FREDEMO) in 1989 and 1990. For an inventory of the Mario Vargas Llosa Papers, go to http://findingaids.princeton.edu/collections/C0641  The papers are one of more than 70 literary archives in the Manuscripts Division, including Reinaldo Arenas, José Bianco, Guillermo Cabrera Infante, Julio Cortázar, José Donoso, Carlos Fuentes, Elena Garro, Emir Rodríguez Monegal, Alejandra Pizarnik, Juan José Saer, and many other authors. For a listing of Latin American literary collections, go to http://firestone.princeton.edu/latinam/literarymss.php. For reference assistance about Princeton’s holdings, contact rbsc@princeton.edu.

Mario Vargas Llosa (left), with Álvaro Vargas Llosa (right). Not to be reproduced without permission of the Princeton University Library.