MAKING WAVES: ESSAYS - Scarce Pristine Copy of The First American Edition/First Printing

Vargas Llosa, Mario (Translated by John King)

ISBN 10: 0374200386 / ISBN 13: 9780374200381

Published by New York City, NY: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1997, 1997

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Description:

1st Printing. 338 pages. Published in 1997. Retrospective collection of literary and political essays. One of the finest collections of its kind ever published. The first appearance of the title in the United States. Precedes and should not be confused with all other subsequent editions. Published in a small and limited first print run as a hardcover original only. The First Edition is now scarce. The DJ Cover features an original portrait of Vargas Llosa by Fernando Botero. Presents Mario Vargas Llosa's "Making Waves" in a felicitous English translation. Selected by the author himself. While he believes being provocative for its own sake is a cheap shot, many of these essays "made waves", that is, generated enormous controversy when they first appeared, and made the author more aware of the feelings behind even the most clinically dispassionate argument. Although much better-known as a novelist, Vargas Llosa's range as an essayist is breathtaking: Literature, especially the great literary figures of the 20th century such as Jean-Paul Sartre and Albert Camus, politics, Europe, Latin America, the United States, and the relations among them all. He writes about his subjects with a fresh voice and keen insight. Mario Vargas Llosa is the writer/intellectual/philosopher par excellence among the Latin-American geniuses of the so-called Boom: He refuses to be categorized, labeled, and reduced by ideology, whether it is Fascist conservatism, political correctness, or Leftist academicism, what he has condemned as "authoritarianism of the Left and the Right". "Making Waves" won the National Book Critics Circle Award for Criticism in 1997, besting its American contenders. It was followed, with sustained brilliance, by "The Language of Passion" (2003) and "Touchstones" (2007). A self-described "European writer of Peruvian origin", Vargas Llosa's only equals as an essayist among Latin-American writers are Carlos Fuentes and Octavio Paz. Together with their forefather, Alejo Carpentier, the trio demonstrates the cosmopolitanism of the "Boom", a Cultural Revolution that brought Latin America out of the darkness of backwardness and provincialism (Vargas Llosa is especially scathing about his Peruvian predecessors) into the Paradise that Jorge Luis Borges dreamt about. An absolute "must-have" title for Mario Vargas Llosa collectors. This title is a great collection. This is one of few copies of the First Hardcover Edition/First Printing (American) still available online and is in especially fine condition: Clean, crisp, and bright. Please note: Among "Boom" writers, Mario Vargas Llosa has been grossly under-valued for the longest time. The collectible value of his books will not only keep but keep going up. A scarce copy thus. Winner of the Cervantes Prize, awarded to the greatest living writers in Spanish by the Spanish Government, in 1994. Winner of the Jerusalem Prize in 1995. Winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2010. One of the greatest writers of our time. A fine copy. (SEE ALSO OTHER MARIO VARGAS LLOSA TITLES IN OUR CATALOG) ISBN 0374200386. Seller Inventory # 15913

About this title:

Synopsis: The first collection of essays by the world-renowned Peruvian novelist explores the relationship of literature and politics, the issue of Latin American independence, and the magic realist style of his books, among other topics.

Review: Mario Vargas Llosa's lively mind alights in all kinds of places, both expected and unexpected: at the 1982 World Cup in Spain; on the Cuban revolution; in Berlin, where the son he meets at the airport has become a Rastafarian. But winding through this engaging collection is an exploration of something closer to the Peruvian novelist's (and one-time presidential contender's) core: his thoughts on the politics of literature and the literature of politics. In the United States, novelists aren't thought of in terms of their contribution to the national good; For Llosa, as for many Latin American writers, these acts most public (politics) and private (the writing of literature) are inextricably linked. "A writer," he says, "has no better way of serving his country than by writing with as much discipline and honesty as he can.... If he writes better in his country, he must stay there; if he writes better in exile, he must leave." And for those who think fiction is divorced from real life, think again: "A nation," writes Llosa, "is a political fiction imposed on a social and geographic reality almost always by force, for the benefit of a political minority."

Bibliographic Details

Title: MAKING WAVES: ESSAYS - Scarce Pristine Copy ...
Publisher: New York City, NY: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1997
Publication Date: 1997
Binding: Hardcover
Condition: Fine
Dust Jacket Condition: Fine
Signed: no
Edition: 1st Edition.