The Language of Passion: Selected Commentary - Hardcover

Vargas Llosa, Mario

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0374183260 ISBN 13: 9780374183264

Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2003

Synopsis

Ten years of world-class journalism from one of Latin America’s most influential and controversial men of letters

Since 1977, Mario Vargas Llosa has contributed a biweekly column to Spain’s major newspaper, El País. Dubbed “Touchstone,” and read in syndication by Spanish-speaking readers around the globe, the column is renowned—in some circles, notorious—for skewering the excesses of the Latin American left and championing classic liberalism and free-market democracy. In this collection of columns from the 1990s, Vargas Llosa weighs in on the burning questions of the last decade, including the travails of Latin American democracy, the role of religion in civic life, and the future of globalization. But Vargas Llosa’s influence is hardly limited to politics. In some of the liveliest critical writing of his career, he makes a pilgrimage to Bob Marley’s shrine in Jamaica, celebrates the sexual abandon of Carnival in Rio, and examines the legacy of Vermeer, Bertolt Brecht, Frida Kahlo, and Octavio Paz, among others.

Vargas Llosa is a model of the engaged writer: whatever his subject, he brings to bear the intelligence, wit, tolerance, and moral seriousness that are the hallmark of his nonfiction. The Language of Passion is the work of a cosmopolite in the true sense of the word.

About this title

About the Author:

Mario Vargas Llosa is the author of eight novels, most recently The Feast of the Goat (FSG, 2001). He won the National Book Critics Circle Award for his most recent book of essays, Making Waves (FSG, 1997).

Language Notes:

Text: English (translation)
Original Language: Spanish

About this edition

• Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
• Publication date: 2003
• ISBN 10: 0374183260
• ISBN 13: 9780374183264
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 304